From Agriculture to Urbanization
In 1864, James Irvine and two partners purchased 120,000 acres that had been assembled through Mexican and Spanish land grants to form The Irvine Ranch®. Irvine bought out his partners in 1876, and in 1894, Irvine's son, James Irvine II, incorporated the land holdings as The Irvine Company. For decades, the Ranch was used for agriculture and grazing, but that began to change as urbanization moved south from Los Angeles County during the early 1960s.
The company resisted pressures to sell off the Ranch piecemeal to developers. Instead, the Board of Directors made a historic decision to forego obvious short-term financial gains and explore a visionary concept: the creation of a large-scale, master-planned community designed to provide a careful balance of working, living, learning and recreational environments. These elements would be integrated in a way that would offer residents an extraordinarily high quality of life.
For more information about Irvine Ranch history, visit www.goodplanning.org/ranch.