Fern Pirkle, who fought large-scale development at Newport Coast, dies at 90

Fern Pirkle, an environmentalist who fought the Irvine Co. and contributed to scaling back the company’s development plans for Newport Coast, has died.

The longtime Corona del Mar resident died Friday of natural causes at her home, according to her family. She was 90.

Pirkle was best known as the president and founder of Friends of the Irvine Coast, which crusaded from the 1970s through the 1990s against the Irvine Co.’s plans to develop Irvine Coast, a roughly 10,000-acre swath between Corona del Mar and Laguna Beach now known as Newport Coast. Her efforts ultimately led to considerably less-intense development there and more natural open space.

Beginning in the 1960s, the Irvine Co. envisioned Irvine Coast for 10-story hotels, office space, a convention facility and about 50,000 homes — plans that were drastically diminished or scrapped altogether in the decades to follow after legal battles with environmentalists including Friends of the Irvine Coast, which once boasted about 2,000 members.

In the late 1980s, after the Irvine Co. received approval from the Orange County Board of Supervisors to build four hotels, two golf courses and about 2,600 homes at Irvine Coast, Pirkle told the Los Angeles Times that she was happy that nearly 80% of the company’s land would remain open space.

“It started out with something almost the size of another Newport Beach city,” Pirkle told The Times. “It took a long time ... but we think this is almost a turning point for possible better relations between environmental groups and developers.”

Pirkle’s daughter, Joan Pirkle Smith, said she hopes that those who enjoy Newport Coast will remember her mother’s contributions to preserving its natural areas.

“I just hope when they look out across the coastline or hike the trails in Crystal Cove State Park that they’ll remember her and her contribution to keeping that as a public open space for generations to come,” Smith said.

Jean Watt, who co-founded SPON, or Still Protecting Our Newport — originally called Stop Polluting Our Newport — called her fellow environmentalist “steadfast, calm and thorough.”

“People don’t really realize what might have been there,” Watt said. “It culminated into something that was remarkable and wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been for Fern.”

In 2003, SPON honored Pirkle with an achievement award. A tree was planted in her honor at Bonita Canyon Sports Park.

Carol Hoffman, a former community relations executive for the Irvine Co., attended the ceremony, where she called Pirkle a worthy adversary, according to Pirkle’s family.

Watt said Pirkle was quiet about her activism.

“She never lost her temper,” Watt said. “She just kept going, like the Energizer Bunny ... you wouldn’t know she was this powerhouse that was keeping this project on hold for so long.”

Pirkle was born in 1926 in Los Angeles. After graduating from UCLA in the 1940s, Pirkle and her first husband moved to Chicago, where she was a schoolteacher.

She later married Hubert Pirkle, who eventually became a professor at UC Irvine’s medical school. The two moved to Louisville, Ky., where her activism streak took hold.

Pirkle was president of the area’s League of Women Voters and a founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky. In the 1960s, she marched in the civil rights movement and against the Vietnam War, according to her family.

In 1970, she moved to Corona del Mar, where, in addition to her activism, she worked as a Realtor.

In 1976, Pirkle founded Friends of the Irvine Coast, which operated until 2011. At that point, it had been renamed Friends of the Newport Coast.

“It is not often that a nonprofit organization has completed its mission and is able to step into the history books,” Pirkle wrote at the time. “We believe we have done so.”

Smith said Pirkle was pleased to have been able to vote for a female presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, in last week’s election.

In addition to Smith, Pirkle is survived by her third husband, Gary Booth; son David Pirkle; stepchildren Steven Booth and Jenny Ellsworth; brother Harold Hart; seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

A public memorial service is planned for January, but arrangements haven’t been finalized. Inquiries about the memorial can be sent to fernsfarewell@gmail.com.

Pirkle’s family asked that, instead of flowers, donations be made to the Sierra Club.