Turning Point : Admirers Give New Life to Leisure World Globe

The world will turn in Leisure World for the first time since 1972 when a major renovation of the retirement community’s landmark globe is completed.

Standing on a grassy knoll 32 feet above the busy Interstate 5 near El Toro Road, the giant metal orb has been a South County curiosity for more than 30 years--except at night. A target for vandals, a bank of floodlights illuminating the globe has been systematically shattered in recent years.

But with the help of a $10,000 fund-raising drive by the Kiwanis Club and a pair of local electricians, the globe will spin once again after its motor is repaired and the lights are replaced.

“I’ve been on top of the world all week, pretty literally,” said Tom O’Connell, a Lake Forest electrician who has spent about 20 hours fixing the globe. “We just felt that it is a landmark in our neighborhood and we wanted people to notice it and see that South County is one of the nicest places around.”

The globe is the symbol of developer Ross Cortese’s dream of building an international chain of retirement communities.

Cortese died in 1991 before he could carry the Leisure World concept overseas, but a huge sphere rises above each of the seven retirement developments he built across the country, including Laguna Hills and Seal Beach.

But as the retirement community in Laguna Hills, built in 1964, aged, so did Cortese’s globe.

When the globe’s motor broke down in 1972, it was deemed too expensive to repair. The 200-watt lamps ringing the sphere were an easy target for beer bottles thrown by vandals and too costly to replace after each smashing. The original paint job has long faded from the metal framework.

Alex H. Alexander would often stare at the rusted behemoth as he motored down the freeway.

“I drove by so many times looking at the globe, wondering what it was in the first place,” said the Leisure World resident. “I came to the conclusion that about 100 million people probably wondered the same thing.”

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Alexander, who heads the Saddleback Kiwanis Club, went to the service group and got approval to start a fund-raising campaign to repair the globe.

As he was raising support form the Kiwanis, Leisure World administrators began thinking it would be a good marketing strategy to fix the globe. Then, Alexander came knocking on their door.

“Unbeknownst to us, they had the exact same idea at the exact same time,” said Leisure World spokesman Kirk Wadilo.

While Alexander canvassed the business community, Wadilo and his staff spread the word among Leisure World residents, and the money was raised in less than three weeks.

Former Leisure World board member Doyle Selden said the recognition will be good for a community that is having trouble selling homes in a depressed housing market.

“We have a lot of turnover here with people dying [or] moving because they can’t take care of themselves,” said Selden. “Yet, Leisure World is kind of a secret in real estate.”

“Making the globe visible will be great because it will bring us recognition,” he said.

In 1973, when South County was little more than cow fields and orange groves, Theresa Zuffante was heading south looking for a retirement home in San Diego.

“We drove by this big globe and I said ‘Let’s stop and see what this is about,’ ” said Zuffante. “I had never heard of Leisure World and it sounded wonderful and I wound up buying a place here.”

When Zuffante heard about the drive to renovate the globe, she immediately got out her checkbook.

“I thought, ‘We can’t lose that thing,’ ” she said. “The globe is what brought me here.”