Playboy Magazine founder Hugh Hefner, philanthropist Aileen Getty and The Tiffany & Co. Foundation will be recognized by the Trust for Public Land (TPL) for their help in acquiring and preserving the land around Cahuenga Peak and the Hollywood Sign.

The land around the Hollywood Sign ha been saved from private development and was annexed as part of Griffith Park. (photo by Aaron Blevins)

Carolyn Ramsay, TPL’s Los Angeles program director, said Hefner and Getty will both be honored with bronze plaques affixed to boulders at both ends of a trail that runs from Mount Lee Drive, near the Hollywood Sign, and Cahuenga Peak. The Tiffany & Co. Foundation will be recognized with a bench next to the Charlie Turner Trail in Griffith Park that is a popular place for people to pose for photographs with the Hollywood Sign.

The honorees were part of a group that donated money in April 2010 to preserve 138 acres of land around the Hollywood Sign that had previously been owned by Fox River Land Company, a Chicago-based group that acquired the property in 2002 from the estate of Howard Hughes. The Fox River Land Company had planned to sell the land for residential development, but the trust for Public Land stepped in to raise the $11.7 million necessary to purchase the property. Hefner donated $1 million, while Getty and Tiffany & Co. donated $1.25 million. TPL purchased the land last year, and turned it over to the City of Los Angeles, which annexed it as part of Griffith Park.

Ramsay said other benefactors donated in excess of $100,000 and will be recognized on bronze plaques at the beginning of the trail between Mount Lee Drive and Cahuenga Peak. They include the Lucasfilm Foundation, the  Mountains Recreation Conserva-tion Authority, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservatory, the Wildlife Conservation Board, Steven Speilberg, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, CBS, the Walt Disney Foundation, and the Entertainment Industry Foundation. Other honorees include the Carl W. Johnson Foundation, Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall, NBC Universal, Margie and Jerry Perenchio, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox, Warner Bros. Entertainment, and Time Warner Inc. City Councilmember Tom LaBonge, 4th District, who was involved in the effort to preserve the land, will also be recognized on the plaques, along with the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, the Hollywood Sign Trust, and the Department of Recreation and Parks.