They’re rich. They’ve got stunning houses with spectacular views. About all the folks of Orange County’s plush hillsides are missing is their own TV show.
Residents of Lemon Heights and Cowan Heights above Tustin and Orange, and in Anaheim Hills and Yorba Linda, live in some of the county’s poshest and most private neighborhoods, tucked away in the steep hills.
On a clear day, some can see OC’s other bastions of wealth, Newport Beach and Laguna Beach. To be sure, the hills aren’t as rich as the coast. But rich they are, as home to doctors, athletes and professionals alike.
And it’s a different kind of wealth.
The coast is home to OC’s ultra rich: real estate barons, technology whizzes, chief executives and business owners. And while Newport and Laguna have their share of old money, the coast is home to the county’s nouveau riche.
The hills are more old school.
“It’s a quiet wealth,” said Ed Blatchford, a realtor with Coldwell Banker, who focuses on the winding hills north of Tustin, including Lemon Heights. “The money has been passed on for generations.”
Some families have owned hillside homes since their inception. Horse corrals, tennis courts, lavish gardens and pools are common.
When “Newport Beach people come out here, they end up saying ‘I didn’t know this place existed,'” said lawyer Wylie Aitken, founding partner of Santa Ana-based Aitken, Aitken & Cohn and a longtime resident of Anaheim’s Peralta Hills.
Wealth in the hills is more likely to be measured in acres of land, not sports cars or yachts, residents say.
‘Pill Hill’
Neighbors are apt to be lawyers and doctors. One area near Lemon Heights is dubbed “Pill Hill” because of all the doctors who live there.
Hillside residents include current and former players from the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, business owners and longtime executives from Boeing Co. At one point, Chuck Norris lived in the hills.
Executives who call the area home include First American Corp. Chief Executive Parker Kennedy, Beckman Coulter Inc. boss Scott Garrett and AST Research Inc. cofounder Safi Qureshy.
Politicians have been well served by the region. Last month, a fund-raiser for Anaheim Mayor Curt Pringle at the Anaheim Hills estate of Krystal Enterprises limo maker Ed Grech raised a reported $110,000.
“There is a considerable amount of money here, but the pace is slightly different,” said Tom Cregg, director of marketing for Caliber Motors Mercedes Benz Anaheim Hills. “It’s probably what I would call more ‘original.'”
Hill dwellers “are a bit more laid back” than their coastal counterparts, Cregg said.
“You can that see that both in terms of their dress, and in the way they present themselves,” he said.
The financial profile of a typical Anaheim Hills Mercedes buyer is among the highest of any Benz dealership in the country, Cregg said.
“The people here,their credit scores are higher,” Cregg said. “There’s more old money. They don’t have to expend themselves as much to keep up their lifestyles.”
Steep Home Prices
The hills are ripe with mansions and estates that in some cases rival the multimillion-dollar homes that run along the county’s coast.
Four and five-bedroom homes in Lemon Heights in the 3,500-square-foot range start at $2 million.
Laguna Beach has the state’s highest median home price at $1.7 million, according to the California Association of Realtors.
Rising prices for upscale hillside homes are outpacing other parts of the county, according to Coldwell Banker’s Blatchford.
“It’s become more expensive to live here,” he said. “That wasn’t the case five years ago.”
Sales for the most expensive homes in the hills above Tustin, which can often take a year or more to sell, have begun picking up in the past several months, according to Blatchford.
There are perks to living away from the coast.
Residents of the hills can buy larger homes with bigger yards. The areas are served by some of the county’s best public schools. And you can’t beat the views, which stretch from Los Angeles to Catalina.
Hillside homes offer more privacy than in other parts of the county, residents say.
All that’s missing is the occasional ocean breeze. Temperatures easily can run 10 degrees hotter than on the coast and have been sweltering as of late.
“If you asked me what my perfect home would be, I’d say it’s my current home,if it were right on the coast,” Aitken said.
A resident of Peralta Hills for close to 25 years, Aitken said the area’s landscape and history remind him of the Midwest, where he grew up.
“My wife was a big reason why we ended up living here,” said Aitken, a prominent Democratic booster. “She always wanted to live on Cobblestone Lane,” the street where the couple now lives.
The Aitkens moved to the street after finding a bigger home with a tennis court. They moved all of five blocks.
Nearby Yorba Linda has a different flavor to it. The area, between Anaheim Hills and Corona, has its share of big hillside homes and is among the richest in the county.
But don’t look for a lot of Jaguars and BMWs. Yorba Linda is the land of Escalades, Denalis and Suburbans.
Yorba Linda is home to doctors and professionals from the mortgage, automotive and other industries. Many commute down the Eastern (241) Toll Road to jobs in Irvine.
In Lemon Heights, a trio of homes for sale shows the past and future of the hills.
A three-acre, three-lot property is listed at $8 million. C.E. Utt, part of the family that ran Tustin’s storied Utt Juice Co., built the home in 1928.
That $8 million price tag doesn’t include development on two of the lots, or work that needs to be done to the property’s main 7,500-square-foot home.
The historic Spanish-style home overlooking much of the county sits in the same neighborhood that counts executives from Leisure World Inc. and Newport Beach-based bond fund manager Pacific Investment Management Co.
A few miles away, a home on 1.9 acres is on the market for $4.4 million. Hidden among trees, the four-bedroom, 4,400-square-foot house has a saltwater pool that runs into a private pond.
Actor Chuck Norris once lived at the house, which was built in 1974. A separate building holds a gym once used by the martial arts star.
Not too many people in the hills are looking to leave. Dino Poulidis has a different plan.
Poulidis, a partly retired nuclear engineer, is looking to fund his retirement by selling a carefully planned home he recently completed on Skyline Drive in Lemon Heights.
Putting up a luxury hillside home is easier than building a nuclear power plant,but only if you use the right contractors and get the best materials, Poulidis said.
The five-bedroom, 6.5-bath house has a tennis court, horse corral, spa and swimming pool. It’s going for about $3.8 million.
