Simple Living, or Simply an Ad Campaign of Quiet Desperation?
Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!
Also: three bedrooms, two baths, a formal dining area, close to a private golf course, from $190,000 to $240,000.
Listen closely and you may hear Henry David Thoreau rotating beneath the sod of old New England.
It’s come to this: The memory of the transcendental hermit of Walden Pond (“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth” and all that) is being used to sell a new subdivision in Carmel Mountain Ranch.
Walden Greens and Walden Terrace are now here, a joint venture of Presley (Development) of San Diego and the Home Capital Development Group.
Streets named after flowers and trees; publicists inviting comparison between the “pastoral hillside setting” and the woods outside Concord, Mass.
Plans for a long-necked, beak-nosed Thoreau look-alike--an actor from Los Angeles--to mingle with the crowd at the grand opening Thursday.
An ad campaign that uses Thoreau’s picture:
“In 1845, Henry David Thoreau built a home in the country for $28. In 1991, history repeats itself, sort of.”
Presley executive Bill Probert says the Walden theme was picked when the company decided to downscale.
Originally, these 360 homes were destined to be bigger, in the $300,000 range and called The Hamptons.
“Walden is sort of a repositioning of our product because of a change in the market,” Probert said.
He feels the name picks up the back-to-basics idea. “An overall value even Thoreau might have agreed to,” say the ads.
Dennis Rohatyn, Thoreau scholar and professor of philosophy at the University of San Diego, has a different view: It’s culturally vulgar.
“It’s taking the memory of a man who was profoundly anti-material and turning it 180 degrees around so rich people can pretend to commune with nature,” he said. “It’s an Orwellian exercise in double-think, good old-fashioned American split-brain schizophrenia.”
Sales for Walden Terrace started Saturday, for Walden Greens (the larger models) next Sunday.
The developer warns: Move fast, the market is picking up.
Real estate was dead, and is alive again.
Window of Opportuni-tee
Things of consequence.
* Golfer vs. computer.
The golf managers at Torrey Pines Municipal Golf Course have discovered a golfer who cracked the secret of the new, computerized, automated telephone reservation system.
For four days in a row, the same guy had been listed as the first caller when the system opened at 5 a.m., giving him first pick on treasured tee times.
He had found that by calling at 3:59 a.m. (not 3:58 or 4:00), he could put in his request before the hundreds of other predawn callers.
Software sleuths have since closed the one-minute window.
* Unintended effects.
Despite the new state sales tax on newspapers, the San Diego Union has refused to raise its prices.
As a result, it just picked up a whole new batch of readers, although it’s doubtful they’re the upper-income types that lure advertisers.
Explanation: The downtown jail is now purchasing the Union for the inmates’ perusal. The jail dropped The Times after it raised its price.
* Cops and residents in the Skyline/Meadowbrook area of Southeast San Diego have joined recently to chase the pushers and gang members out of the neighborhood.
Today the partnership goes a step further: a noon-to-5 p.m. Neighborhood Job Fair, complete with job recruiters, college information and food.
* The Sheriff’s Department is replacing its old green jumpsuits (for rough duty) with black ones. Called Ninja Suits by deputies.
Champing at the Bit
How eager were women patrons at the Del Mar Racetrack to use the restroom between races rather than wait a few minutes and maybe miss part of a race?
A crowd barged in after the first race on opening day, ignoring the warnings of a male track worker who was up on a ladder repairing a light fixture.
