The builders behind Baker Ranch in Lake Forest hope that patience pays off when they open the largest remaining housing development slated for the city.
The 372-acre residential project in the northwestern foothills of Lake Forest will have its official unveiling Feb. 8 with the debut of six neighborhoods and a handful of parks and other community amenities.
About 580 homes are part of the project’s initial phase, with sales expected to continue over the next two years or so. Baker Ranch will hold close to 1,800 homes and more than 400 apartments when it’s built out.
The first move-ins at the for-sale portion of the community—between Bake and Alton parkways near the Foothill (241) Toll Road—are expected by May.
Baker Ranch will be on par with the Orchard Hills development—expected to kick off sales in Irvine this spring—as the largest new-home developments coming on the market in Orange County this year.
Shea, Toll Brothers
The homebuilding portion of Baker Ranch is a venture between Walnut-based Shea Homes and Horsham, Pa.-based Toll Brothers Inc.
Toll Brothers bought into the project in 2012, paying $110 million for a 50% interest in the project. It bought out the ownership stake of Baker Ranch Properties LLC.
The Baker family once owned close to 5,000 acres in the area, land it bought in the late 1950s.
Privately held Shea and its affiliates have been associated with the site since the 1990s and have seen the project’s construction inch along slowly—first because of a change in development focus from commercial to residential, and more recently during the last housing downturn.
Shea and the Baker family spent more than a decade getting the Lake Forest site entitled for residential development.
The project’s 2014 opening, coming amid a slowly improving housing market and solid sales in other recently opened OC developments, makes those delays seem like blessings, according to Bob Yoder, president of Shea’s Southern California division.
“Waiting seems like it worked out for us,” Yoder said.
The community is Shea’s largest in OC since 2011, when it opened the first phase of its Blackstone community in Brea with Irvine-based Standard Pacific Homes.
For Toll Brothers, the 2012 deal for the Lake Forest land was among its largest in California in nearly 20 years. It was the first of nearly $2 billion worth of buys in the Southern California market—deals made in anticipation of an improving market.
“We were confident about the market and confident about Orange County,” said Seth Ring, president of Toll Brothers’ Southern California operations.
The company has made two other notable local deals since the Baker Ranch buy, acquiring land from Newport Beach-based Irvine Company for its high-end Hidden Canyon project, and buying the home-building business of Beverly Hills-based Shapell Industries.
The 250-home Hidden Canyon development, near Irvine Co.’s Laguna Altura community, is expected to open early next year.
“It’s the last great piece of land south of the 405,” Ring said.
Affordability is a key selling point for Baker Ranch, even with Toll, one of the country’s largest builders of luxury homes, on the project.
Compared to projects in nearby Irvine, “you’re getting more house, and more yard, for your dollar,” Yoder said.
Pricing at smaller homes at Baker Ranch start at a little more than $500,000 and go above the $1 million range for some of its larger offerings.
There are no Mello-Roos taxes at Baker Ranch, a rarity for a new community in OC.
Shea also has homes being built a few miles away at Pavilion Park, the first phase of residential development at Great Park Neighborhoods in Irvine.
Yoder expects Baker Ranch’s offerings to appeal more to younger families and first-time buyers than Pavilion Park, which is placing a greater emphasis on multigenerational living.
“We’re not attacking [that] as aggressively as Pavilion Park,” Yoder said.
Grading has started for the second phase of Baker Ranch, but it’s likely two years away from opening.
Yoder said his company previously considered selling additional lots to other builders, but it now plans to build out the remainder of its portion of the development by itself.
