Even when $PREFIX has been set correctly, if L is moved outside its build-tree, it does not function properly.
Namely, it seems to fail to find the L-specific libl.tcl library needed to operate properly.
Running strings, we get the following
$ strings L | grep tcl8.6
../.././L/lib/tcl8.6
/lib/tcl8.6
That is, L looks for libl.tcl in only two places: where it would be located inside it's build tree and the system copy.
Talking in the IRC channel, georgn suggested the following:
10:19:07 @georgn | in our top level Makefile, we define INSTALL_ROOT -- I'm guessing that's the culprit