In a vivid example of the Wall Street financial crisis hitting home, development plans for a Placer County golf course community called Bickford Ranch crashed Friday in federal bankruptcy court.

Bickford Ranch, a 1,942-acre residential project in the Sierra foothills between Penryn and Lincoln, collapsed after its sole source of cash – Wall Street investment bank Lehman Brothers – imploded in September, developers said.

The community, long controversial for its potential impact on its rural foothills setting, was a partnership between Lehman Brothers and Irvine land development giant SunCal Companies.

SunCal spokesman David Soyka said Friday that without Lehman's money, SunCal Bickford Ranch LLC can't finish infrastructure work or even maintain the property.

"The Lehman Brothers bankruptcy has created a situation that stands in the way of any new capital coming into the project," Soyka said in a statement. Lehman filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Sept. 15 after the U.S. government declined to bail it out, as it had done with other investment banks.

Initial court filings did not list the partnership's assets or liabilities. But documents show that it owed about $3.4 million to its 20 largest unsecured creditors. That includes $1.86 million owed to West Sacramento engineering firm Kiewit Pacific Co. and $330,118 to Marques Pipeline Inc. of Sacramento. It also owes:

• $240,994 to Placer County.

• $100,000 to Land Architecture Inc. of Roseville.

• $100,245 to the Placer County Community Development Resource Agency.

• $11,731 to Pacific Gas and Electric Co.

The project, initiated by Miami-based Lennar Communities, won county approval in 2001. But it was stalled for years by lawsuits. Environmental groups argued that the location on pastureland and ridges violated the county general plan, which called for preserving oak woodlands.

In 2004, a Placer Superior Court judge agreed. Later that year, the developers resubmitted their plans. Then environmentalists sued again.

Eventually, the SunCal partnership, which bought the property in 2005, paid $6 million to preserve oak woodlands elsewhere in Placer County to settle the lawsuit.

"It's kind of an out-of-place island of suburbia in the midst of a very rural setting," said Terry Davis, a party to the negotiations as an official of the Sierra Club's Mother Lode chapter.

Davis, told Friday of the bankruptcy filing, said, "It still would be a great place for a park. It has spectacular vistas from up there."

SunCal said water and sewer lines are nearly completed and site grading has begun. The company said it had also planted thousands of oak seedlings on the property. Though developers initially expected the first residents would move in in 2006, neither the golf course nor any homes have been built.

SunCal attorneys said Friday the project will go forward eventually. The Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, they said, helps find a new investor.

The filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Santa Ana is only for the limited partnership with Lehman Brothers. It does not apply to SunCal, which has developed large projects across the West in recent years, including Lincoln's 2,900-home Lincoln Crossing community.

Bickford Ranch, however, was the development firm's fourth related bankruptcy filing in California. All involved partnerships with Lehman Brothers, which armed SunCal with $2.2 billion to develop properties throughout California and Nevada.

Other related casualties:

• A proposed 6,000-home golf course community in southwest Bakersfield named McAllister Ranch. A partly built golf course there has become a sheep pasture.

• A 1,640-home community named McSweeney Farms near the Riverside County city of Hemet.

• A 3,600-home project named SummerWind Ranch near Calimesa in Riverside County.

Call The Bee's Jim Wasserman, (916) 321-1102. Read his blog on real estate, Home Front, at www.sacbee.com/blogs. Bee staff writer Jon Ortiz contributed to this report.