Location, Location, Location: Newport Beach
May 1, 2005
Curled around a large harbor filled with yachts and dotted with small
residential islands, Newport Beach, Calif., is a casually elegant
community
where residents watch the surf and stock market reports with
equal interest. And
while Newporters share a somewhat laid-back ethos,
their neighborhoods are
remarkably diverse. “Newport is really a group
of villages,” says Zackary Wright
of Sotheby’s International Realty.
“People say they live in Corona del Mar or
Newport Coast or Peninsula
Point, even though they are all in Newport Beach.”
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Above: 21 Island Vista, a five-bedroom
Pelican Crest estate on the market for
$7.295 million, offers
280-degree views of the harbor and ocean. (Click image to enlarge)
For locals, however, the distinction is significant. Residents of blufftop Corona del Mar are enamored of their narrow tree-lined streets of idyllic cottages. Nearly a century old, Corona del Mar has succeeded in retaining its villagelike feel. To the south, in Newport Coast, the draw is the newer mansions that offer extraordinary hilltop views of Catalina and the ocean. Peninsula Point, meanwhile, offers traditional beach houses nestled on a long, narrow stretch of land—the most desirable of which occupy three or four bayfront and oceanfront lots.
Newport Beach has long enjoyed the cachet of posh Cape Cod towns, but went further upmarket in the 1970s and 1980s when corporate executives started moving their headquarters to Newport Center—an upscale office park encircling the open-air Fashion Island mall—and building homes in the gated Big Canyon, Belcourt and Harbor Ridge communities. The grander Newport Coast, where development started 15 years ago and continues today, surpassed those areas as the neighborhood of choice in the 1990s, when the concept of formal Mediterranean villas became de rigueur. And now, despite being located in neighboring Irvine, Shady Canyon has captured the full attention of well-heeled Newporters. “I’ve heard many say that the Irvine address is a drawback, but that’s certainly not reflected in Shady Canyon sales,” Wright says. “People are buying—and they’re buying very expensive homes.” Only 400 homesites of up to one acre occupy Shady Canyon’s 1,070 acres. New residents, including slugger Mark McGwire, are forgiving the lack of ocean views for the area’s remarkably rural feel, central location and new golf course.
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