Homes could rise on ridge near Hollywood sign

A Chicago investment group said Tuesday that Los Angeles officials have failed to come up with the cash to preserve the mountaintop next to the iconic sign, so it has put the ridge up for sale.

Cahuenga Peak, which boasts a panoramic view, will carry a $22-million price tag, its current owners said.

The 138-acre mountaintop is zoned for five luxury homes, according to investment group partner Keith Dickson. "It could be used for one large home or a family compound," he said.

Dickson's Fox River Financial Resources acquired the mountaintop in 2002 from the estate of Howard Hughes for $1,675,000.

The eccentric tycoon had purchased it in 1940 with plans to build a love nest for actress Ginger Rogers.

But she balked at that idea, fearing that the reclusive Hughes would "lock me up in a hilltop house and never let me see anyone," as Rogers later put it.

The impending listing is already generating loud protests from city officials and Hollywood residents, who say building homes on Cahuenga Peak would mar one of L.A.'s most famous views and scar a pristine hilltop with homes.

"That mountain should not be cluttered," said L.A. Councilman Tom LaBonge. "It's good for the psyche of Los Angeles."

For the last several years city leaders have scrambled to raise money to buy the ridge from Fox River and turn it into an extension of Griffith Park. So far, they've accumulated about $5 million.

The city had intended to ask the nonprofit Trust for Public Land to negotiate a selling price with the Chicago owners. Two months ago, a city-commissioned appraisal calculated that the mountaintop was worth about $6 million.

LaBonge was stunned Tuesday by Cahuenga Peak's asking price. "If they come to City Hall and do the right thing, they can still make a nice profit," he said of its current owners.

"The city should acquire this land," he said. "Everyone was shocked to find out it was privately owned. Everybody thought the city already owned it."

Dickson suggested that city leaders may have dragged their feet because they thought the acreage was land-locked -- inaccessible and thus undevelopable.

But the developers insist the land is accessible, thanks to Hughes' actions back in the 1940s.

He sued to obtain an easement to his peak property. In 1949 the city settled the lawsuit, granting Hughes a 100-foot-wide access to the site from the dead end of Wonder View Drive, said Mark Ward, a partner in the investment group.