New Addition to the Laguna Lineup

Call it Laguna confusion.

Leisure World residents, who voted last week to make themselves California’s 472nd city--and the nation’s first gated city for seniors--chose a name that has some people scratching their heads: Laguna Woods.

Never mind that it’s seven miles from the nearest beach and isn’t known for its lagunas--Spanish for lagoon or small lake. Forget that the closest thing to rustic woods in this enclave of retirees is the well manicured shrubbery.

Now the community becomes the fourth incorporated “Laguna” among Orange County’s 32 cities. It joins Laguna Beach, the artsy ocean-side hamlet formed in 1927, and two suburban newcomers: Laguna Niguel and Laguna Hills. Several nearby neighborhoods also bear the name, among them Laguna Canyon and South Laguna.

Clearly, the name evokes something powerful--though people aren’t sure exactly what it is.

“Everyone wants to be affiliated with Laguna Beach,” says public affairs consultant George Urch of Laguna Hills. “It’s a beautiful area that’s one of the jewels of Orange County. People want that sort of feeling to rub off.”

Mark Petracca, professor of political science at UC Irvine, says Leisure World’s choice reflects a common yearning among suburban residents to create idyllic communities, even if they can do so in name only.

“They’re doing what most of Orange County does when it names things,” Petracca says. “They name them for things that don’t exist, but [they’d] like them to.”

Leisure World isn’t alone. Residents just up the freeway decided in 1991 to incorporate under the name Lake Forest, dropping the area’s historic identity: El Toro. In Michigan, five upscale communities have adopted variations on the Grosse Pointe name, including Grosse Pointe Farms, Grosse Pointe Shores and, yes, Grosse Pointe Woods.

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Kime Goodrum, a mortgage broker with the Monarch Lending Group of Laguna Hills, warns that choosing a distinctive name like Laguna doesn’t necessarily translate into something more tangible, as in higher property values.

“I used to live in El Toro, and a lot of real estate agents thought when they changed the name to Lake Forest, it would remove the military base stigma and property values would go up,” Goodrum recalls. “It didn’t happen.”

Still, “Laguna” is definitely hot. The south Orange County telephone directory lists more than 200 businesses that use the name, from Laguna Asphalt & Paving to the Laguna Yamaha Music Center. The name is used far more than that of any other community in the area.

Some people worry that the new city name will lead to confusion. County officials already prevailed on Leisure World to back away from its first choice--Laguna Heights--because it could be mistaken for similarly named subdivisions and a shopping center in Laguna Niguel (a word believed taken from a Spanish proper name).

The plethora of Lagunas has resulted in misplaced calls to the Laguna Beach Chamber of Commerce, whose executive director, Howard Levin, wonders whether Laguna Woods is the right name for Leisure World.

“There really is only one Laguna,” Levin says.

But Urch notes that Laguna Woods and Leisure World start with the same letters and, beyond that, “Laguna Woods brings back memories of yesterday. Many of these folks probably can remember when there were woods in Orange County.”