Margarita Peak endowment honors Robert and Arlyne Ingold

FALLBROOK – Renee Ingold, a former member of the Fallbrook Land Conservancy’s (FLC) board of directors, has donated funds for an endowment to provide support for the preservation and maintenance of Margarita Peak Preserve.

Valued at $50,000, the Ingold Family Fund will be held by the San Diego Foundation, with interest to be paid to the FLC twice annually starting this month.

Ingold donated the funds as a tribute to her late parents, Robert and Arlyne Ingold, beloved philanthropists who moved to Fallbrook from Newport Beach in 1963.

“They were so in love with Fallbrook,” Ingold said. “You can’t drive up and down the streets without seeing something they didn’t help make happen – Ingold Fields, the Boys and Girls Club. They supported the construction of the new library and the music society.”

Ingold’s parents were founding members of the FLC, among other nonprofit organizations. The endowment honors her parents “in the best way I could think of,” she said.

Located in a remote northwest corner of San Diego County, the chaparral-covered Margarita Peak is the FLC’s largest preserve at 1,206 acres. Roughly 3,200 feet above sea level, it also boasts the highest peak in San Diego County, west of Interstate 15.

“It’s the one thing that really stands out in Fallbrook,” said Ingold, who has hiked to the summit, known for its breathtaking, panoramic views of the ocean to the west, Camp Pendleton to the south, and the Cleveland National Forest to the north and east.

“My parents were not really outdoorsy, but I’m outdoorsy,” she added.

Margarita Peak Preserve is a vital wildlife corridor in the California Department of Fish and Game’s Santa Ana-Palomar Mountain linkage, providing “critical wintering, breeding and migratory habitat for numerous species,” said Mike Peters, FLC’s executive director and preserve manager. Because of its sensitive habitat, and largely inaccessible areas, the preserve is closed to the public for biological studies.

Ingold, who served on the FLC’s board from 2008 to 2011, is a generous supporter of Stagecoach Sunday, the FLC’s annual fundraiser, to be held this year on Oct. 4. She is also a member of the board of directors at the Child Development Center in Fallbrook and the New Mexico Environmental Law Center.

Margarita Peak is one of 12 nature preserves owned and managed by the FLC on 2,073 acres. The FLC also holds conservation easements on more than 660 acres. For more information, visit http://www.fallbrooklandconservancy.org.