Craig Atkins has the high and low ends of OC’s housing market covered.
Irvine-based homebuilder City Ventures, where he’s chairman and co-founder, has some of the more affordable new offerings for sale in the area; the eco-friendly firm’s townhome projects in Santa Ana and La Habra run around $500,000.
Along a three-lot, bayfront estate in Newport Beach, a well-publicized home Atkins built as a personal investment late last month brought in a lot more—a shade over $35 million from an undisclosed buyer. It’s a record price for a Newport Harbor home.
“There hadn’t been any large new homes built on the bay, and I saw it as a great opportunity for investment that worked out well,” Atkins told our Katie Murar last week (see page 35 for more). He bought the lots for the home five years ago.
The 12,710-square-foot home might also have been OC’s most expensive rental property.
“We were making so much money renting it that we considered keeping it in our portfolio as an income property,” Atkins said.
How much? A three-week summer rental by one out-of-town visitor paid about $300,000.
The home was designed by architect Robert Sinclair, a rival to Brion Jeannette (see front-page story) for designs of high-end homes, and marketed famously by Coldwell Banker’s Tim Smith, through a parody video “Teach Me How to Duffy.”
“I thought it was a very thoughtful and creative way to market the property,” Atkins said of the $50,000 film, which garnered millions of views on YouTube and other sites. “Whether you liked the video or not, you remembered it.”
School’s now back in session for most area students, with the new Dale E. and Sarah Ann Fowler School of Engineering at Chapman University among the new additions to OC’s collection of colleges (see page 23).
You’re bound to see a few Business Journal names on the Orange campus this semester: Executive Editor Peter J. Brennan, Contributing Editor Pete Weitzner and Executive Dining Columnist Christopher Trela each are teaching there—not to mention President Emeritus Jim Doti; in this week’s issue, he points out some ominous economic signs to keep an eye on in this week’s Leader Board, on page 59.
You’ll also see some notable business names on campus grounds. Outgoing Pacific Mercantile Bank CEO Tom Vertin was a guest lecturer last week at Brennan’s Finance 496: How to Turn Numbers into Narrative class. See more on this page for the just-announced exec changes at the Costa Mesa bank.
Alteryx CEO Dean Stoecker is scheduled to be Brennan’s guest lecturer later this semester; the big data analytics firm has also pledged students of the class free use of Alteryx for Good, a program that is valued in the thousands of dollars each.
To hear more from Stoecker outside the classroom, read his column for Forbes, where he’s a new contributor, and see our upcoming Innovator of the Year awards event on Sept. 25 at Hotel Irvine; the newly minted billionaire is the keynote speaker.
