The Orange County Great Park is located on land that was once part of the El Toro Marine Air Station. Before that, it was Irvine Ranch bean fields and grazing land, and, before that, Mexican and Spanish grazing land. The Juanenos (Acagchemen) and Gabrielino Indians also had a presence on this land.

The City of Irvine is developing this publicly owned land, which is approximately the size of New York’s Central Park, as one of the first great metropolitan parks of the 21st century. The City’s vision is to provide a recreational, cultural and social gathering spot for Orange County residents as well as others who are near to or far from Orange County. As Central Park, Balboa Park and Golden Gate Park are great metropolitan parks built in previous eras, the vision for the Orange County Great Park is that it will be a great metropolitan park built in this era.

The private land that surrounds the public Great Park land and is called the Great Park Neighborhoods was also part of the former El Toro Marine Air Station. Current plans for the Great Park Neighborhoods include the building of homes as well as commercial, educational and recreational features. The private Great Park land combined with the public Great Park land is over six square miles.

GRAPHIC COURTESY THE ORANGE COUNTY GREAT PARK CORPORATION

“Edge city is an American term for a concentration of business, shopping, and entertainment outside a traditional urban area in what had recently been a residential suburb or semi-rural community. The term was first used in Tom Wolfe’s 1968 novel The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and popularized in the 1991 book Edge City: Life on the New Frontier by Joel Garreau, who established its current meaning while working as a reporter for the Washington Post.”—Wikipedia

Look high, look low, it is hard to find buildings from the past that preserve Irvine’s history.

This is typical of edge cities, which tend to tear down anything that is the least bit old. However, one building in Irvine that is quite old still exists. In fact, it is one of the oldest wood buildings in Orange County. What I am writing about is the building next to the San Joaquin golf course that houses the Irvine Historical Society.

This wood structure was built about 1880 and was the cooking quarters for what was once one of the largest private working ranches in the country, the Irvine Ranch. At one time, the Irvine Ranch covered not only the area currently occupied by the City of Irvine, but covered over one-third of Orange County.

Today the Irvine Ranch still exists but as a land development company, not a working farm. The Irvine Ranch of today includes all or part of the cities of Laguna Beach, Anaheim, Tustin, Orange, Newport Beach, and Irvine.

The Irvine Ranch cooking quarters was not the first wood building on this site. At one time, attached to this cooking wing was the living quarters that James Irvine, founder of the Irvine Ranch, used when he came to southern California from San Francisco to oversee ranch operations. These living quarters, which James Irvine had built in 1868, were the first wood structure built between Anaheim and San Juan Capistrano.

I have heard two stories on how this 1868 structure was destroyed. One is that it was destroyed in a fire. The other is that it was removed to facilitate the grading for the San Joaquin golf course. (If the reason is the second, then this would be prime edge city behavoir. If anyone has information on this, please leave a comment.)

So something of the past has survived in this edge city, and signs that the City of Irvine may be moving away from its tear-down-anything-slightly-old mentality exists. For example, some of the hangars at the former El Toro Marine base (and now the Orange County Great Park) are being converted for other uses instead of being destroyed.

The City of Irvine’s evolution includes the Juanenos (Acagchemem) and Gabrielino Indians dwellings, Spanish and Mexican rancheros, one of the largest grazing ranches in the country and later one of the largest agricultural farm that used cutting-edge farming practices, and one of the country’s largest master-planned community that has been the subject of many books and studies.

The evolution continues today. Former ranch land is being converted into new suburbs; industrial land is being converted into mixed-use urban living, and the former El Toro Marine Air Base is being converted into the Orange County Great Park, a metropolitan park for the twenty-first century. The intention for the Great Park is that it will serve Orange County in a way that is similar to the way Balboa Park, Central Park, and Golden Gate Park serve their communities.

We will see what the future brings, and I will be documenting some of it on this blog.

For more information on the evolution of Irvine, see my past Redfin post: “Irvine at the Crossroads.” And to read contrasting views on possible development in Irivne, see one of Joel Garreau’s articles and an Irvine Company’s publication.

Tomorrow: a brief description of the Orange County Great Park and current plans for the Great Park development

PHOTO COURTESY THE IRVINE HISTORICAL SOCIETY