Family Room, Many Extras

When Tom and Debbie Lizee decided to move, they were looking for what many home shoppers want: a family friendly community with an outstanding school system.

They found both in the Deane Homes, the first neighborhood developed in Mission Viejo, one of Orange County’s first master-planned communities. The 30-year-old tract is named for the builders of the homes, the Deane brothers.

“This place was built for families,” said Debbie Lizee, 36, mother of Eric, 2, Kelsey, 5, and stepmother to Kevin, 13, and Trevor, 15. “The Saddleback Valley Unified School District is in the nation’s top 10%, and our elementary school, O’Neill, is in the top 2%.”

Debbie Lizee teaches movement exploration classes for children at the YMCA in Mission Viejo. Tom Lizee, 40, a divisional director of sales in the personnel industry, commutes to the Costa Mesa/Irvine area.

The Lizees paid about $230,000 for their four-bedroom, two-bath, two-story home in January of 1995. The house had recently been upgraded and remodeled.

“We essentially bought a brand-new house,” Debbie Lizee said of the numerous improvements, including a new roof, water heater and appliances. From the many windows in the back of the house, the Lizees view mature foliage and greenery.

“It’s amazing to look out into the backyard and not see another house,” Debbie Lizee said. “It makes you feel like you have your own space.”

Mission Viejo lies on the coastal foothills of the Santa Ana Mountains in south Orange County and is eight miles inland.

The Deane Homes were built between Jeronimo on the north, La Paz on the south, Chrisanta on the west and Spadra on the east. La Paz was the only road into the Deane Homes, and Mission Viejo, until 1969, when the first stretch of Marguerite Parkway opened to connect La Paz with Oso Parkway.

About the same time, 9.4 miles of the San Diego Freeway (405) opened to connect Mission Viejo with the Orange County Airport.

Robert Bennett, 40, and his wife, Barbara, 36, began researching Orange County cities after Robert’s job as a managing attorney for the auto club required them to move from Altadena to a new home closer to his new responsibilities for the Orange and San Diego county region.

The Bennetts were house-hunting in Mission Viejo during the Christmas season, 1995, when they discovered Mission Viejo Plaza at La Paz and Chrisanta, a hub of the Deane Homes and surrounding residential tracts, decorated for Christmas and Hanukkah and in the midst of festivities.

“We decided to attend a holiday performance at the local junior high. The place was packed, and we could see that community spirit was alive and well,” Robert Bennett said.

The Bennetts bought a 2,560-square-foot, five-bedroom, three-bath house a few blocks from the town center priced in the mid-$200s. The New England-style house resembles a modern Cape Cod with a shingled exterior and double hung windows.

Robert Bennett joined the Mission Viejo activities committee, and Barbara is active in the women’s club and mom’s club. They have a daughter, Holly, who is 20 months old.

“The Deane tract is like a village within a town,” Robert Bennett said. “It was the first tract, and they got it right.”

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Home prices vary from about $190,000 for a 1,500-square-foot single-story home to $225,000 for an upgraded 2,500-square-foot five-bedroom home, according to Lana Facinelli, an agent at Tarbell Realtors, who has sold many Deane Homes. The median price is in the low $200s, she said. (Deane Homes sold originally for about $21,000 in 1966.)

One of the big pluses of living in Mission Viejo, according to the residents, is a sense of security and safety

“We are blessed with very few problems for a city of 90,000,” said Lt. Kim Markuson of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, which provides police services to the city under a contract.

Long before Mission Viejo was a city, it was a ranch--a very large ranch.

Mission Viejo was the name given in 1778 to the area where the Spanish had originally established Mission San Juan Capistrano. When Mexico won its independence from Spain in 1821, the governor granted large estates to a few citizens. An English trader, Don Juan Forster, opportunely married the governor’s sister and acquired the Mission Viejo, about 47,000 acres in size. Forster eventually amassed 200,000 acres, which hard times forced his sons to sell after his death in 1882.

Richard O’Neill, the owner of a meat-packing plant turned cattleman, bought Rancho Trabuco and Rancho Mission Viejo with the help of his friend, James C. Flood, the “Silver King of Nevada” and owner of the Comstock Lode silver mine. The two men were equal partners in the enterprise, and O’Neill worked out his half as resident manager, and in 1907, at 80 years of age, he obtained title to the ranch from Flood’s son.

O’Neill’s heirs continued to farm and raise cattle and increase their holdings through a partnership with Flood’s descendants. But in 1940 they decided to divide the land.

By 1942 the 52,000 acres owned by Richard O’Neill Jr., was called Rancho Mission Viejo. After he died in 1944, and after years of legal complications dating back to the 1920s, O’Neill’s widow, Marguerite, obtained full control of the O’Neill land.

Richard and Alice O’Neill Avery, Richard and Marguerite’s descendants, sold 10,000 acres of Rancho Mission Viejo in 1963 to Donald Bren, Philip J. Reilly and James Toepfer, who formed the Mission Viejo Co.

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When the master-planned community of Mission Viejo was approved by the Orange County Board of Supervisors, they hired the Deane brothers to build the first houses.

Georgene Fairbanks, a mortgage broker for Kent Mortgage in Costa Mesa, and her family moved into the Deane Homes at the height of the market in 1980, paying about $300,000 for a single-story, two-bath 1,900-square-foot house.

Originally from the East, Georgene, 43, and Dale, 55, who is in the plastics industry, were first drawn to the area for its rolling hills and appealing architecture.

“Here was a planned, clean neighborhood with lots of parks. We had a good feeling about raising our children here,” Georgene Fairbanks said.

Their daughters, Julie and Jenny, now 22 and 20, were enrolled at O’Neill kindergarten and elementary school, where Georgene helped organize the parent-teacher organization.

When the girls were in junior high, the Fairbanks considered moving, but the girls were adamant about staying in the neighborhood. So they looked at their options.

“We wanted to make the space we had more livable. We looked at where we spent most of our time and made the changes,” she said.

The Fairbanks converted most of the backyard to a swimming pool and spa, and built a large deck off the back of the house. They turned one of the four bedrooms into a TV/computer room, replaced the dark wood and green/orange colors of the kitchen with corian counters and white appliances.

Georgene Fairbanks said more homes are getting a redo.

“As home sales continue to improve, and homeowners replace renters, houses are get updated and customized,” she said.

Sherri Butterfield, mayor of Mission Viejo, also sees a revitalization of the neighborhood. When she and her husband, Marion, moved into the tract, they were 10 years younger than many of their neighbors, who were semiretired.

“Now the neighborhood has had a complete turnover. It’s nice to see the rejuvenation, and the effort most families put toward making their homes attractive,” she said.

Now in their 50s, the Butterfields bought a five-bedroom, three-bath home in the Deane tract in 1972 for $38,000, moving from a two-bedroom apartment in Santa Monica with their daughters, Kirsten and Tara, now 31 and 27, when Marion transferred to Huntington Beach to continue work for McDonnell-Douglas.

And what has been the appeal to stay in the tract all these years?

“When we first moved here, everyone was new and from somewhere else, so each person seemed to make an effort to reach out,” said Sherri Butterfield, who is an educational writer and editor. “People worked together to raise the children in the neighborhood.”

“When I wash dishes and look out the window, I see Monterey pines, hummingbirds hovering around a blooming bottlebrush, oleander and ivy-covered slopes. And when a radio announcer gives the weather report from the East Coast, I know I’m in paradise.”

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At a Glance

Population

1995 estimate: 80,470

1990-95 change: +10.4%

Annual income

Per capita: 15,987

Median household: 39,241

Household distribution

Less than $30,000: 11.6%

$30,000 - $60,000: 30.1%

$60,000 - $100,000: 36.7%

$100,000 - $150,000: 16.3%

$150,000 +: 5.3%

Mission Viejo Home Sale Data

Sample Size: 2,958 (for 10-year period)

Avg. home size: 1,781 (square feet)

Avg. Year Built: 1974

Avg. No. Bedrms: 3.39

Avg. No. Baths: 2.26

Pool: 12%

View homes: 16%

Central air: 46%

Floodzone: 77%

Price Range: $96,000-715,000 (1995-96)

Predominant Value: $147,000

Age Range: 5-48 years

Predominant Age: 22 years

Average Sales Data

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Year Total $ per Median Sales sq. ft. price 1996* 22 $110.21 $188,454 1995 223 $118.17 $206,226 1994 240 $121.15 $209,412 1993 180 $123.43 $210,941 1992 262 $134.00 $227,007 1991 257 $136.85 $232,538 1990 289 $144.01 $243,875 1989 333 $147.56 $239,293 1988 599 $121.11 $218,023 1987 553 $100.94 $169,242

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*1996 data current through January.

Source: TRW Redi Property Data, Anaheim

Phyllis Palone Sturman is a freelance writer whose most recent “At Home” community profile was of Capistrano Beach.