An Upscale Community With Rural Sensibilities

Lemon Heights is a small, bucolic community of upscale homes, winding roads, horse trails and rolling hills.

And until Monday’s fire captured the public’s attention, “it was one of the best-kept secrets of Orange County,” said Mike Hickman, general manager of Seven Gables Real Estate in Tustin. “It’s a place that has maintained the rural feel that was once Orange County.”

With a population of about 3,800 residents, Lemon Heights is one of the most attractive and richest areas in the county. The median household income hovered around $100,000 when the 1990 census was taken; most homeowners owned two or more cars and some have horses.

Ancient eucalyptus trees and tall oaks are anchored in the spacious half-acre lots that are the norm in the unincorporated area, which is just northeast of Tustin.

“It’s a very spectacular place,” Hickman said. “Many of the homes have great views. You can see all the way to Catalina [Island] on a clear day.”

On Monday, however, the wonderful vistas were blocked by billowing clouds of smoke after a fire tore through the neighborhood, destroying or damaging 26 homes. The fire occurred along the base of Lemon Heights, where homes generally run $300,000 to $400,000 and get increasingly more expensive as they move up the hillside.

But it was the loss of valuables inside some of the pricey homes that most distressed many of the homeowners.

One woman whose home was ablaze ran back in to remove an oil portrait of a young blond girl in a white frilly dress. Another woman lamented the loss of her jewelry and furs, destroyed along with her house. Yet another woman said she spent nearly a year redecorating her home with imports from Italy and other items only to see it all gutted.

Before the spacious ranch-style homes were built in Lemon Heights, the area was known throughout the Southland for its miles of citrus groves, which covered the land from the 1930s through the 1960s.

“Each spring, the air was heavy with the smell of orange blossoms,” according to “The Golden Promise: An Illustrated History of Orange County.”

Although Lemon Heights embodies the suburban lifestyle, some big city crimes in recent years have blemished part of its allure.

In 1992, one homeowner was arrested on suspicion of being the “Mercedes Robber,” a masked bandit who stole more than $36,000 from banks and made his getaway in a luxury car. In May 1995, a 14-year-old boy was found murdered on a dirt path in Lemon Heights. The youngster had been killed by several young men and boys when he demanded the return of a $2,500 mobile stereo system he had lent them.

Earlier this year, a man and his elderly mother were killed and their bodies burned in the million-dollar hilltop estate they leased in a Lemon Heights neighborhood.

For the most part, though, Lemon Heights is a very appealing place to live.

“It’s a very pleasant and unique place,” Hickman said.