It could be a sign of a new legacy

I can think of two ways to look at the possibility that 138 hallowed acres near the Hollywood sign may get bulldozed and turned into a McMansion cluster:

First, why not? It isn’t as if we’ve gone out of our way to preserve the natural aesthetic anywhere else in Southern California. So let’s put an Olympic-size infinity pool or two up there, a Wolfgang Puck cafe and a drive-through laser surgery center to service the new residents, so they don’t have to get out of their Range Rovers.

And second, are they kidding?

I drove to the top of Beechwood Canyon the other day and hiked up the Hollyridge Trail to put in my own two cents. The plan was to trek across the property in question to the lone tree that survived the fires last year at the eastern edge of Cahuenga Peak. As I wrote last September, hikers record their thoughts on this or that in a small notebook under the tree, and I had something I wanted to write.

But before I made it to the Hollywood sign, I bumped into Tim Greenhall of England and Joel Wesslund of Sweden, who are in town on business and pleasure. The sign is known the world over, of course, and these two guys wanted to be able to say they were nearly close enough to touch it.

I told them that the next time they hike to the sign, they could be trespassing on Michael Ovitz’s croquet court, if not the helipad of an Arab sheik.

“I heard something about that,” Greenhall said, looking at Wesslund, who winced and took a step back. How, he wondered, could self-respecting residents of Los Angeles let such a thing happen?

While I spoke to them, Tom Edgar, a Web designer in white shorts, strolled by. He curled up to the top of the trail, just above the towering H and O, and checked out the stunning view. The sky was milky blue and the city raced down the mountain, spilling into the shimmering sea.

Edgar said he’d have to know more about where the houses would be and what they would look like. That’s not precisely clear, I told him, but I pointed out the 138-acre plot just west of the sign. He sized things up in his mind’s eye and put things in perspective:

“Every city has its landmark, and this is our Eiffel Tower.”

It would take nothing, Edgar said, to set up a website and begin “a grass-roots campaign” to save the mountain. I told him I might take him up on it.

I have to admit that when I first saw the sign many years ago, it was not love at first sight. I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, where I was dazzled by the Golden Gate Bridge and the tinkertoy city skyline. The Hollywood sign was a Polaroid oddity, more than a little cheesy and commercial.

But I now proudly show off the view of the sign from my backyard, and I enjoy sitting up on the deck when the setting sun marches closer and closer to the Griffith Observatory and the whitewashed sign as the days grow longer.

Yeah, I know the original Hollywoodland sign was a real estate promotion. But it doesn’t take much imagination to see it as a statement about human desire and frailty. About the trip we all take into the unknown. Part of what makes the sight of it so serene, even mystical, is that the letters sit on one of the last undeveloped ridges in the metropolis.

But as you may have heard, the 138 private acres in question -- surrounded by public property -- were purchased by a Chicago investment group in 2002 for a mere $1.675 million from the estate of Howard Hughes. Hughes had intended to put his honey cup, Ginger Rogers, up there at 1,800 feet, fixed like a queen, but she chose to do her dancing at a lower elevation.

Why napping L.A. city officials didn’t realize the land was up for grabs, and elbow those Chicago yobs out of the way, is beyond me. But it now seems like the biggest blunder since Native Americans let the Dutch have Manhattan for $24 in cloth and buttons.

The city had the 138 acres appraised for $6 million and would be willing to pay that much, but the hooligans from Chicago are playing hardball. They say the land is zoned for up to five houses and that they can get a cool $22 million for the property.

L.A. City Councilman Tom LaBonge says he’s exploring legal challenges to the owners’ claims that a 1949 lawsuit by Hughes cleared the way for development. The owners would have us believe the houses wouldn’t be close enough to the Hollywood sign to obstruct anyone’s view, but who wants to see a private driveway carving up the mountain?

“It cannot happen,” said LaBonge, who frequently leads hikers through the area, pointing out plants and wildlife.

In 1978, he said, when the Hollywood sign was crumbling, the entertainment industry stepped in to save the day with $27,000 in donations. Alice Cooper, Hugh Hefner and Gene Autry all wrote checks, and maybe this time Hollywood will step up in a bigger way, LaBonge said.

He promised to put out the call, noting that from Cahuenga Peak, you can see the Warner Bros., Disney and Universal lots.

Up by the sign, I met an equestrian show announcer named James Collins. If houses are built near there, he said, they might as well dock the Queen Elizabeth in Lake Hollywood too. As far as who should pay to preserve the space, he was on the same wavelength as LaBonge, saying those who’ve found gold in Hollywood should kick a few nuggets into the pot.

“Tom Cruise, Johnny Depp, Spielberg, David Geffen, Sherry Lansing” are good candidates, he said.

Some of those folks are already big givers, actually. Geffen and Eli Broad have their names on more than a few institutions. But I’ve got another thought. Since Chicagoans own the land, why not have a shrewd real estate man -- from Chicago, no less -- buy them out?

This might not endear me to my new boss, Sam Zell, but he’s said to be worth several billion. What better way to introduce himself to Southern California than to go down in L.A. history as the man who saved one of the city’s great icons?

Come on, Sam, I’ll chip in. And I’ll lead you out to the tree, which I couldn’t get to this time because a cop was there to stop me. Private property, he said.

Yeah, I know. But I need to leave this note for the owners:

“Over my dead body. Or, if I’m busy, over Tom LaBonge’s.”

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steve.lopez@latimes.com