Back to the Old Neighborhood

Immaculate new-home tracts may catch the eye, but the old side of town is capturing the hearts of many Americans.

Even in Southern California, stereotyped worldwide as endless tracts of tile-roofed sameness off a zillion freeways, home buyers said what they want in their neighborhoods is, well, more neighborliness.

And if they are to be believed, many will sacrifice such resort-style suburban staples as swimming pools, golf courses and gated communities to get an earlier 20th century feel in their housing for the next millennium.

“I think we’re all real sick of Irvine, especially the newer parts, with the cookie-cutter houses,” said Vicki Snell, who lives in a well-tended area of Costa Mesa that was not master-planned. “It was in style for a while, and now it’s not.”

Snell was one of 600 Orange County homeowners polled by The Times about their attitudes toward housing. The survey, conducted over four days in January and February, came as home prices were beginning their sharp ascent in the more affluent areas of the county, toward their pre-recession highs. It has a margin of sampling error of 4%.

Among the findings: older homes with character are preferred to new houses; master plans and restrictions on building appearance get more thumbs down than approvals; and porches are more desirable than pools.

These opinions reflect many of the principles of an emerging movement often dubbed the New Urbanism, said Mark Baldassare, an urban planning professor at UC Irvine.

New Urbanists believe that jobs, shopping and recreation should be close to home--within a walk or bike ride if possible. And they believe neighborhoods should contain varied housing types and residents of various ages and income levels.

“I like a variety of neighbors. I don’t want all kids, or all retirees,” said Anne Leishman, who praises the mix of condos, townhomes, detached and mobile homes in the planned Forster Ranch community where she lives in San Clemente.

Yearning for Diversity Surprises Sociologists

Planners and sociologists said it’s especially interesting to find such leanings in the heart of suburban Southern California.

“That’s amazing in Orange County,” said Berkeley-based urban planner Peter Calthorpe, whose emphasis on urban villages, public transit-oriented development and walking communities has made him a guru of New Urbanists.

He said he would have expected the county’s residents to prefer gated communities of people like themselves, living in newer-style homes. But the poll participants, it turned out, weren’t particularly fond of Orange County’s trademark sand-colored subdivisions.

Cheryl Katz, director of the poll, said the respondents want modern amenities but with a less-walled-in feeling.

“People want an updated house where everything works and a kitchen that’s newer than 1940,” Katz said. “But they are longing for a sense of community--established communities like the kind they grew up in.”

That is what Snell, a 47-year-old former Taco Bell advertising employee, and her husband, Richard, a senior manager for Boeing Co., like about the Mesa Verde section of Costa Mesa. It was built in the 1960s as a mixture of mass-produced and custom houses.

“It’s a neighborhood you can walk in. I feel safe here,” Snell said, strolling with her children, ages 2 and 4, past nearby parks and elementary schools. She meets many older people on the street who have lived in the area for decades, along with younger parents like herself.

“There’s a golf course close by, but that’s not important to me,” she said. What is important is that her backyard has plenty of space, even with the family room they are adding. “One of the things people don’t like about Irvine is that--no yards.”

Another attraction is that changes made to the area’s homes have been to the owners’ specifications--not from an association or planner’s rule book.

That has given the neighborhood its own quirky personality.

Six gigantic palm trees--two clumps of three each--dwarf a little ranch house. A porch with fancy metalwork stretches across the entire second story of another home, almost New Orleans-style. Someone else has painted the trim on a buff-colored house a shocking shade of blue.

There is even a dingy paint job or two. “We don’t like them,” Snell conceded, but she’d rather tolerate that than the sameness of many master-planned communities.

Her preference for a more traditional neighborhood is widely shared. Only one in five Orange County homeowners consider being near a golf course or swimming pool crucial. Just a quarter find gate-guarded communities highly important.

But three in four said a “walking community,” where people stroll to parks and other public destinations, is a top priority. And more than 40% rate old-fashioned porches--from which people can visit with their neighbors--as highly desirable.

Old-Fashioned Future or Just Passing Fancy?

Skeptics wonder whether baby-boomer cravings for such features will add up to much in the end, tending to lump them with the craze for things past that has landed “I Love Lucy” on Nick at Nite and James Brown’s “I Feel Good” on Senekot laxative ads.

“People have a nostalgic wish to live in the ‘Brady Bunch’ era,” said Raymond L. Watson, the Irvine Co. vice chairman, whose vision shaped the prototypic planned communities on Orange County’s Irvine Ranch.

Watson said people have always wanted their homes to feel a little old-fashioned. Victorian “gingerbread” adornments, for example, were calculated attempts to evoke earlier times, he notes.

He points to features in his communities that would do any neotraditionalist proud: little neighborhood parks dotting Irvine’s oldest “village,” Woodbridge; the “spine” of park and school open space tying together Newport Beach’s Harbor View area.

Watson said a sense of community emanates from solid schools and civic programs such as those in Irvine. “Because of that, you’re going to see a lot more real social interaction in Irvine than in the San Fernando Valley,” Watson contends.

Some people who have moved to older homes, especially smaller ones, were skeptical whether many of the county’s homeowners actually would pick the old over the new.

“They may have said that, but most of them wouldn’t do it. People want big closets,” said Dan Summerl, who five years ago moved from a house in Irvine to a South Laguna cottage of less than 1,000 square feet.

Now he, his wife and daughter look out to sea from a shady ravine, and worry that a planned development of large new homes on the Laguna Niguel ridgeline above them will worsen the threat of flooding to their little house.

“To tell the truth, we could use a little closet space ourselves,” Summerl said. “Would I trade for it? Heck no. But I think a lot of people would.”

Indeed, of those interested in buying a new home, half said more space was their main reason. Another 27% wanted a better neighborhood, while 13% wanted a house in better condition.

And although the beach is considered the best place to live, only about one in four would trade their current home for a smaller one near the ocean.

Retro Neighborhoods Aren’t Hard to Find

Home buyers who want old-fashioned neighborhoods and homes to match can certainly find them in Orange County, in places such as north Santa Ana, downtown Orange and Laguna Beach.

“People are starting to realize that what’s missing in their lives is a real urban environment, not the two-dimensional lifestyle and endless planned communities in South County,” said Don Cribb, a Santa Ana planning commissioner.

Cribb, who lives in north Santa Ana, is a leader of the movement that has brought a flood of artists’ studios to the city’s downtown.

He finds it amusing that the big new homes in Irvine’s Northwood section are, from the outside, knockoffs of Craftsman, mission and other old home styles found in Santa Ana’s Floral Park area--except on half as much land.

“People used to move out to the suburbs to get more living space. When you move back into the city now, there are bigger-size lots than in the suburbs,” Cribb said.

The Irvine Co.’s Watson said that there is a large range of housing choices in Orange County.

“People may not realize it, but diversity is one of the great strengths of this county,” he said. “There are a lot of different-style neighborhoods to choose from.”

Indeed, more than 73% of the county’s housing stock was built before 1980, when planned communities first blossomed. And 45% of the county’s homes were built before 1970, according to Urban Decisions Systems Inc. of Marina del Rey.

Not Everyone Can Get Just What They Want

Although they may be in the minority, sizable numbers of homeowners still find the modern aesthetic of master-planned Irvine and its civic offspring appealing.

“Irvine, I think, is the perfect community. I’m one person who likes things neat, clean, pristine, organized,” said Colleen Bedford, a former Irvine apartment dweller.

She wishes she could afford a home there but can’t, given current median prices in Irvine of about $280,000 for a house and $180,000 for a condo.

“Some of their older developments, like Woodbridge or Deerfield, are a little bit more stylish, and they have those little community areas that are shared,” she said.

“The newer parts of Irvine tend to be more boxy, with less of the breathing room that the earlier Irvine had.”

Bedford, an office manager, and her husband Ron, a trucker, live in a neat, Cape Cod-style condominium development. Their unit, purchased in 1994 for $149,000, draws compliments from visitors.

“We’re perfectly happy with what we have,” she said. “It’s as close to Irvine as I can get in Anaheim.”

That feeling of general satisfaction is echoed by poll respondents, although one in three said they would leave the county to get a better home.

There also would be a major population shift from north to south if people could choose their dream location. But in practice, many still consider South County too remote, new toll roads or not.

“I love it down there, and the freeway has been widened. But that’s still a long drive,” said Abbie Doyle, who considered moving to Aliso Viejo or Laguna Niguel but instead chose a quiet, airy Tustin condo when she “downsized” from a single-family home in Downey in late 1995.

She walks a nearby golf course for exercise at night, has three malls within 15 minutes, and finds it easy to visit her son in Los Angeles and get to her job in Brea.

“It’s central to more places here,” said Doyle.

Pollster Katz said the preference for South County, with its mostly newer housing, would seem to conflict with the poll’s findings that more people want older homes with character.

“What they’re really saying,” she said, “is that they want to live in the old part of San Clemente, or Laguna Beach. And they can’t all do that.”

MONDAY: Many homeowners plan to take advantage of real estate boom.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The incredible shrinking lot

Land costs make up 40% of the final price of a home in the county--twice as high as in the 1960s -- which means fewer garden plots and smaller lots. While buyers crave “neotraditional” features like extra width between houses and garages in back of a home, developers say such additions push up the price of a home. Here’s how home lots, sizes and styles have changed in Orange County through the century.

1920s Cottage

Lot: 7,500 square feet

Home: About 1,100 square feet

Features

* Single-car, detached garage entered via rear alley

* Front porch

* Small closets

* Lath and plaster walls with wood built-ins

* Hardwood floors

1950s-1960s Ranch Style

Lot: 7,000 square feet

Home: About 1,600 square feet

Features

* Limited model styles

* Small den

* Built-in appliances

* Attached two-car garage, entered from the front

* All bedrooms about the same size

Late 1990s Mini-Mansions

Lot: 4,750 square feet

Home: About 3,600 square feet

Features

* Dual walk-in closets

* Large master suite with luxury bath

* Smaller children’s bedrooms

* Downstaris bedroom/home office

* Kitchen/family room combined into large “great room”

Source: Acxiom/DataQuick; The Marketing Department; Researched by JANICE JONES DODDS / Los Angeles Times

Changing the Neighborhood

The desire for a more neighborly place to live is uppermost in the minds of county homeowners, who say they would prefer community features that would bring them closer to neighbors rather than to recreational amenities.

* In choosing where to buy a home, how desirable do you consider each of these neighborhood features on a scale of 1 to 7, with 1 being not at all desirable and 7 being extremely desirable:

% Saying “highly desirable” (6 or 7 scores)

A community designed to encourage people to stroll about their neighborhoods: 74%

Houses with front porches where people can sit and visit with their neighbors: 41

A wall around your neighborhood with a guard or security gate at the entrances: 27

Being close to a swimming pool: 22

Being close to a golf course: 19

*

Most county homeowners say they are satisfied with housing available here and are at home with the Mediterranean or mission styles so prevalent. They are not in love with the idea of planned communities, though, particularly in North County:

* In general, how satisfied are you with the housing available in Orange County?

Very satisfied: 45%

Somewhat satisfied 45

Not too satisfied: 10

* Many of the homes in the county are Mediterranean or mission style, with brown or pink stucco walls and tile roofs. Do you find this type of housing to be attractive or not attractive?

Attractive: 60%

Not attractive: 30

Neither, neutral: 10

* Many of the homes in the county are in planned communities, in which land use must conform to a master plan, buildings must meet regulations for appearance and residents must follow community codes and regulations. Would you like to live in a planned community, or not?

*--*

Total North South Yes* 41% 34% 54% No 55 62 41 Don’t know 4 4 5

*--*

* Includes those living in planned communities

Trade-Offs

While South County--particularly the beach cities--is considered a more desirable place to live, homeowners would rather live in an older home with character than one that has just been built. They would not surrender space, though, to live closer to the beach.

* Would you prefer to have a new house that has just been built or an older home with character?

New home: 39%

Older home: 49

Don’t know: 12

* Would you consider moving to a smaller home so that you could be closer to the beach?

*--*

Total North South In market Yes 26% 25% 29% 28% No 63 66 54 64 Already live at beach 10 7 16 6 Don’t know 1 2 1 2

*--*

Age Factor

Age is an important factor in housing attitudes. Those in the youngest age group, for example, are more likely than older homeowners to prefer a new home. They also place more value on the proximity of a pool and are not as likely to want to live in a guard-gated community.

*--*

55 and 18-34 35-54 older Prefer new home 47 38 35 Pool is very desirable 27 23 18 Guard gate is very desirable 25 23 38

*--*

Source: Times Orange County Poll

Ideal City

Although most homeowners live in North County, the majority say they would like to live in South County. Beach cities dominate their selections.

* If you could live anywhere in Orange County, which city would you live in?

*--*

Current Ideal address address North County 68% 45% South County 32 55

*--*

Specific mentions (5% or more):

Newport Beach: 13%

Huntington Beach: 9

San Clemente: 7

Laguna Beach: 6

Yorba Linda: 6

Irvine: 6

Anaheim: 5

Mission Viejo: 5

Source: Times Orange County Poll