Welcome Back Baby, to the Poor Side of Town

My first ever trip to California was to Laguna Beach in the summer of 1985. I stayed in a comfortable though seriously décor-dated condominium (of course I remember that detail) on the ocean side of the Coast Highway in an area known as South Laguna.

The townhome was just steps from the beach and I wasted no time making my way there for my first attempt at west coast bodysurfing. It was a semi-private beach, so it was sparsely populated and I couldn’t wait to get into the water. In a matter of minutes, the waves were bigger than anything I’d ever experienced and all of a sudden I was in the underwater midst of my first ever aquatic summersault. I swear I completed two full rotations before landing in the shallow water, hard on my tailbone, luckily uninjured but exhilarated beyond words. I was instantly hooked on the chilly water and waves of the Pacific. Back in the Northeast, that type of surf activity was usually an indication that foul weather, for instance a hurricane, was approaching.

During that week I frequented downtown Laguna, took a trip to look at Cal State Long Beach as a possible location for a return to school and discovered West Street beach, one of California’s most beautiful beaches with a large section of it frequented by crowds of gay men predominantly there on day trips from Los Angeles, a mere fifty miles and sometimes two hours to the north. I too became one of those Angelenos less than eight months after that first visit.

I can also remember the drive from Laguna to Newport Beach, where we now live, along the Pacific Coast Highway as it meandered it’s way northward through the Irvine Ranch lands: miles of rolling California hills and meadows that unfurled into the ocean along the beach at Crystal Cove State Park.

The first sign of trouble for this stretch of heaven arrived with the construction of Newport Coast Drive, a four-lane thoroughfare that sliced the land in half and opened in November of 1991. In spite of the political and legal wrangling that for lasted for years in an effort to save the land, the once pristine coastline is now dotted with McVillas as far as the eye can see. The hills are now terraced with large tract homes that show about as much individuality as a stadium full of tweens at a Hannah Montana concert. Granted, there are thousands of acres still intact of Crystal Cove State Park and the Laguna Coast Wilderness Park, but the new developments took up what looks to be about half of what had previously been an undeveloped stretch of shoreline along the inland side of the Coast Highway.

Personally, I don’t see the appeal of paying upwards of four million dollars for a 4,000 square foot stucco and flagstone monster when it’s placed directly next door to and amongst what seems to be thousands of similar homes, nearly identical in fact, with their turrets, cupolas and tile roofs. I guess there’s some uniqueness in that perhaps the “home of your dreams” might boast as its color a cool Portofino white while your neighbor’s castello dell’oceano on one side is awash in a Tuscan Sunset tint. On the other side of you, they live in a world of Giotto-inspired murals appliquéd over their Sienna-cotta walls. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if one out of ten or twenty houses was built in this Mediterranean-Italianate-Spanish style, but no, they all are. Each and every one and by the way, if this writing thing doesn’t work out, I may have a future naming paint colors for Benjamin Moore.

Our home is a modest townhouse located in one of Newport Beach’s oldest developments, the Bluffs. The neighborhood is conveniently located in an equidistant position between the Pacific Ocean and the 73, 55 and 405 Freeways (remember, this is Southern California we’re talking about). The Bluff’s hover above the cliffs that overlook the south side of the Upper Newport Bay, which has been a dedicated ecological reserve since it’s protectors won a decade long battle against developers in 1975 (sometimes the good guys do win, especially when the Irvine family’s not involved). The homes in our neighborhood were all built in the 1970s and by Newport Beach standards, are of modest means. Most of the units are under 2000 square feet and most feature patios that back up to either greenbelts or the backs of other units or, for the pricier homes along the perimeter of the development that hug the cliffs, beautiful views of the Upper Bay.

The kicker to me is that these homes in our area list for sale from the mid-$700k’s for units in need of work to nearly a million-plus for those that have been nicely remodeled. For the record, we’re renting a unit that was updated with inexpensive vinyl windows and vinyl bathroom tiles but at least has a nicely updated kitchen, layout and walnut floors and our landlords recently paid just over $900k for the privilege of leasing it to us. This might explain the presence in the area of so many families with school-aged kids as that’s the cheapest price in the whole city that I guess you can pay to get your offspring into Newport schools. I’d imagine too that there are parents here that rent like us but no doubt their kids are sworn to secrecy. I can sympathize as I sometimes find myself needlessly adding when asked if we own our unit that although we don’t, we’re trying to unload a condominium that we do own in San Francisco, you know, one of America’s most expensive cities, and that we also have a vacation home out in the desert in dignified Rancho Mirage and not party-town Palm Springs. Less than two months here and I’m already showing signs of an affluenza infection. Thankfully, I’ve got an ample supply of the antidote at home: Fred.

I sort of feel sad for these kids who have patios instead of yards and who live intermittently amongst retirees and displaced gay guys. I’d think that if I were a parent I’d be plenty satisfied with one of the myriad of inland communities in Orange County that boast Reality TV-worthy schools, a decent yard and ample square feet for the same money that gets you a seventies-style condominium townhouse where we live . I wonder too if at nearby Corona del Mar High School (go Sea Kings! go Sea Queens!) if there’s any socio-economic separation as a result of the disparity between the kids who live in the high six-figure condos “around here” and those who live in the low-to-mid seven digit houses “over there” and if those six-figure daughters who have even ever heard it, empathize with the Johnny Rivers song.


Next week: WWJD- What Would Jesus Drive?