Bigger Home Is Sought for Artworks : Culture: Collector whose house doubles as gallery offers to give his holdings, valued at $8 million, to Culver City.

In Gene Mako’s gallery, it’s hard to see the art for the paintings.

The gallery doubles as Mako’s two-room Park La Brea apartment, and it is crammed with more than 500 paintings and sculptures, some covered with brown paper, others displayed on easels. Paintings are stacked on the floor, 10 deep in places. They are lined up on bookshelves and hanging on the walls.

There is barely room for a toilet in Mako’s bathroom, which has also been pressed into service as a display space.

A top tennis player in the late 1930s and a Los Angeles art dealer for four decades, Mako, 79, has offered to donate his entire collection of paintings to Culver City--more than 800 pieces that he estimates are worth more than $8 million. The collection includes original pieces by Norman Rockwell, John Singer Sargent, Auguste Rodin and Jose Clemente Orozco.

Mako’s offer comes with some conditions, however. One is that the city find a permanent place to display the art. “I don’t have any heirs and I don’t want to see beautiful art go to waste,” said Mako, who won the Wimbledon doubles title in 1937 and 1938 with partner Don Budge.

Mako also wants the city to dedicate a portion of the display space to paintings by his late father, Bartholomew Mako, a Hungarian immigrant best known in Los Angeles for producing artwork for public places, including St. Sophia’s Church.

“I want to perpetuate my father’s stuff,” said Mako, who for 50 years has designed and built tennis courts.

Culver City’s redevelopment agency currently is considering the proposal; as a first step, it is having the artwork appraised. One appraiser who has evaluated Mako’s art said he was impressed by the works.

“It’s really a unique collection,” said Lee Schamadan, a personal property appraiser in Monrovia. “It touches a lot of different areas of art and all the artists seem to have relationships with each other. I know there is an active market in the artwork he has.” Before approaching Culver City, Mako offered his collection to Burbank and Glendale. Although officials from both cities expressed initial interest, they never followed up, he said.

And, concerned that the pieces in his collection would be split up, he does not want to offer the art to any of the local museums.

Mako’s offer holds some appeal for Culver City. Such a substantial collection housed in a new museum could help draw visitors to the city’s newly redeveloped downtown area, said Mark Winogrond, community development director for Culver City. But the long-term costs could be enormous, he added.

“Art museums are expensive to build and they are expensive to operate,” said Winogrond.

One possible site for the collection is the Culver Theater, a vacant Culver City movie house. To refurbish the theater, however, “everything would have to be redone,” Winogrond said.

As far as Mako is concerned, the project would be worthwhile.

“I think every city should have (a museum),” he said. “But if they’re not interested in culture, so be it.”