A quiet sanctuary in central Orange County

It’s not easy to get into Cowan Heights. And that’s just fine with the residents.

“People here like that. They like the quiet. The streets are arranged in such a way that you don’t get much traffic,” says resident J.R. Haxton.

Indeed, this wooded enclave of luxury homes atop a hillside in central Orange County has one main access road feeding into its maze of twisting streets and a few narrow lanes meandering down its south half into the nearby tract homes. No streetlights to help out at night, either. No sidewalks to navigate the steep neighborhoods.

That’s life in Cowan Heights, one of a clutch of unincorporated communities in an area the U.S. Postal Service calls North Tustin and locals call a country retreat from the region’s chockablock suburbs and strip malls.

Then and now

Like much of the land in this area, Cowan Heights was once part of the vast Irvine Ranch. Portions of it were leased over the years to citrus growers until the property was sold to early developers, including a wealthy oil executive, Walter Cowan, who named the area and subdivided it into generous hillside lots. Cowan would gain a different brand of notoriety in his later years when in 1971 he professed to have been resurrected from death at the hands of his guru, who performed the supposed miracle when Cowan suffered what he said was a fatal heart attack during a trip to India.

Today, lots range from one-half to 2 acres and are zoned for equestrian use, although few residents stable horses these days. Hikers and dog walkers enjoy the riding trails that ramble through the community. Mature pine, oak and eucalyptus trees shade the roads and trails. Toyon pine and coastal sage dot the roadsides.

Residents often spot wildlife -- usually just raccoons and coyotes, but also the occasional mountain lion.

“It has a very nice trail system. It goes down to Peters Canyon [Regional Park]. People there have a delightful view,” says Richard Nelson, president of the Foothill Communities Assn., a group founded in 1964 by Cowan Heights residents keen to preserve the bucolic lifestyle enjoyed by themselves and their neighbors in Lemon Heights.

Insiders’ views

Except for a few years in Lake Arrowhead, Haxton, an architect, has scarcely lived anywhere else. He graduated from Tustin High School and “has been building in these hills for years.” His house is on the market as he moves into another of his own design, again in Cowan Heights. The city lights views from many of the lots are unbeatable, he says.

“You’ve got views here that you’ve got nowhere else in the county,” he says.

The large lots attracted Margaret Henke and her husband, Norm, when they bought their Cowan Heights home 22 years ago. It had breathing room that reminded her of her Midwestern roots and space to experiment with drought-resistant landscaping, says Margaret Henke, an avid gardener and environmentalist.

“I just always have liked a lot of outdoor space around me, having grown up on a farm,” she says.

Housing stock

That kind of elbow room is typical Cowan Heights, says David Lavin, an agent with Seven Gables Real Estate in Tustin.

“Some of the homes are very hidden, very private,” Lavin says. “You don’t even know some of them are there until you take a long driveway down through the trees.”

Building styles include large, rambling midcentury ranches and contemporary houses built by owners who considered the older homes to be tear-downs, Lavin says. A handful of Cowan Heights houses date back to the 1920s. This year Lavin sold a 1926 Spanish-style house -- with a ceiling imported from an old Mexican church -- for $3 million. Typically, houses cost from around $900,000 to $4 million. Recently the range ran from a foreclosure listed at $734,000 to a 3-acre property with a 4,800-square-foot house listed at $4.2 million.

Report card

In years past, a sliver of the community fed into the Orange Unified School District, but Tustin Unified School District now serves the entire area. Cowan Heights students may attend Arroyo Elementary, which scored 925 out of a possible 1,000 on the 2008 Academic Performance Index Growth Report; Hewes Middle, which scored 861, and Foothill High, which scored 834.

home@latimes.com

Sources: www.foothillcommunities.org/, www.tustinhistory.com/, www.cde.ca.gov/.