The Richest Real Estate Investor in The World (Part 1)

A little background on the history of The Irvine Company.

Read this entire episode here: http://tinyurl.com/55zadwbj

In 1864, James Irvine and three partners bought a 101,000-acre ranch, for around $26k. Much of that is now a city called Irvine, in California. It was initially a ranch focused on agriculture and it also encompassed coastal land. In the early 1900’s they started developing some of the real estate, and in the 1950’s they started large scale planned community development, also known as master planned communities, which encompasses building everything from residential to commercial and industrial buildings. The city of Irvine became one of the largest planned communities in the US.

I recently read the book The Irvine Ranch: A Time For People by Martin A. Brower, and I will be sharing what I highlighted from the book below for my own knowledge.

50's

• Novices in such real estate transactions, The Irvine Company prepared lease and sale agreements which did not require development as proposed nor reversion of the land to the Company if not used by the lessee or purchaser.

60's

• As they were expanding and continuously growing, one of their developments in the 60’s pioneered the “zero lot line” concept, in which a house is placed on its neighbor’s property line, resulting in one wide side yard rather than two small and useless side yards for each home. The unique plan placed groups of homes around a series of central green parks. Homes were priced from $27,000 to $32,000, a step below the prices in Turtle Rock Hills.
• As with all other Irvine Company village centers, included architecture consistent with its community, an attractive service station with pumps away from the streets, and with a supermarket and shops opening from a broad walkway rather than directly from the parking lot.
• Master planned to group buildings by size and use, the IIC was developed with strict covenants regulating land coverage, architectural design, landscaping and sound, odor and visual emissions. They were known for their innovative planning concepts.

70’s

• The Company’s Residential Division had developed strict guidelines for each village which builders had to obey if they wanted to be invited to build homes on the Ranch. One of the homebuilders in Greentree — The Bren Company — was felt not to be cooperating. It was determined that Bren would never again be invited to build on the Irvine Ranch.
• When a citizen spokesman completed an attack one of of the Irvine company’s plan for a new project and the city stood with him, the president at the time Raymond Watson, applauded. “You’re not supposed to applaud,” chided Company director of public relations Martin Brower. “Sure I am, this is real democracy in action, with each of us respecting the other’s role”.

We will continue this exploration on the next post as I will highlight how Donald Bren became a partial owner of The Irvine Company and how he then became the sole owner of The Irvine Company.

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