Hansen: O.C. is losing its sense of place

Has the center of O.C. lost its meaning?

Perhaps it’s fitting that the geographic center of Orange County sits behind the gated walls of an Irvine subdivision, smack dab in the middle of a cul-de-sac.

There’s no monument, sign or X marking the spot. There isn’t even a basketball hoop.

Until I pointed it out to the neighbors, they had no idea.

“That is funny,” said Mike Sciutto, the first owner on Lily Pool, in 2005. “The center of Orange County never entered our thoughts. We used to think we lived way out in the boondocks.”

At one time, that was probably true. The location is near Jeffrey Road and Bryan Avenue. Back in the day, it was all farmland.

Sciutto remembers lemon trees on the site before the bulldozers came in. Indeed, county officials have been keeping an eye on the location and have aerial photos dating to the 1930s.

Whether giving rise to lemons, oranges or asparagus, it was burgeoning farmland.

“In fact, from the 1938 photo, the land just to the north and northwest was, and continued to be, orange groves,” said Art Andrew, OC Public Works’ geodetic section senior land surveyor. “This location is right on a separation line between grove and undeveloped land, which probably had to do with property ownership. I surveyed in this area in the late 1980s and remember asparagus everywhere.”

Andrew said the maps show the first sign of residential development in 2003, and it continued until there were no more farms — or at least not on the same scale.

On the corner of Jeffrey and Bryan is Smith Farms, a flat 7.5-acre anomaly of green amid the muted hues of designer homes.

Laurie Smith co-owns the farm with her husband, McKay. They’ve been there almost 20 years. The adjacent Mormon church owns the land, which it bought from the Irvine Co.

“We were the first organic farmers in Orange County, before it was a thing,” Smith said, chuckling. “When we started it was all farmland.”

She didn’t know about the center of Orange County being so close either.

She said most people don’t know where they live anymore. They live in oversized homes with no backyards — no place to grow food, she said.
“When I talk to my older customers, they get it,” Smith said. “It’s mostly a sadness, like, ‘Remember back in the day?’”

It’s not a good-ol’-days lament but more about knowing a place and being connected.

“They know where food comes from,” Smith said.

“Everybody now is,” she hesitated, shaking her head. “Too little, too late.”

She said the farm grows “organic strawberries, kale, beets, cabbage, cauliflower, zucchini, anything seasonal, watermelon, heirloom tomatoes, cucumbers, Brussels sprouts.”

The fruits and vegetables are lined up in neat rows and small batches in a clean, humble building. Outside, cars race by at a million miles an hour.

The speed of the farm changes things.

Workers in the field cherry pick strawberries at just the right time. Each one looks perfect.

You can see the berries from the public sidewalk, just feet away. Sometimes people can’t resist and take a few.

“It’s never so bad that it’s a huge issue,” Smith said about the impromptu picking.

Back in the cul-de-sac, Sciutto conceded that people sometimes forget their roots. Every place has a history, even if it’s new.

He’s seen significant changes in the nearly 10 years he’s been on the street.

What was once a younger family neighborhood has turned older with kids going off to college. Several foreign investors have bought homes. A few people rent.

He calls the neighborhood a “little United Nations,” rattling off ethnicities: “Chinese, kosher Jew, regular Jew, Buddhist, Middle Eastern.”

“There was a time when the street was thick with skateboards,” he said, pausing and looking at the empty cul-de-sac as if remembering. “It’s a life cycle.”

And in this cul-de-sac, it’s ironic that the life cycle of food was once here. In this time of trendy farm-to-table marketing, where organic and homegrown is valued, there is a place you can go — for now — where it’s real.

Very near the exact center of Orange County, you can stand in a strawberry patch, eat a berry and let the juice run down your hand. And if you turn slowly in a circle, you see our choices.

Rows and rows of houses lined up like farms.

DAVID HANSEN is a writer and Laguna Beach resident. He can be reached at hansen.dave@gmail.com.