‘Gen. Lyon’ Is a Generous Friend to Republican Party

He is a retired Air Force brigadier general, a big-game hunter and a real estate developer who likes hosting Republican fund-raisers at his 22,000-square-foot, antebellum-style mansion in Coto de Caza.

The personality is William Lyon, 66--”Gen. Lyon” to his friends--who, by many accounts, is a generous, courtly man with a flair for business that has brought him success in diverse fields.

There was a regional airline company, AirCal, which he and fellow developer George Argyros bought in 1981 for $61.5 million and sold six years later for $225 million, splitting $15 million in profit between them.

There was his $325-million acquisition of Pacific Lighting Corp.’s real estate division in 1987.

And there is his Newport Beach real estate firm, William Lyon Co., which in 1986 had sales of $692 million, making it the nation’s eighth-largest home builder.

But Lyon and the company that bears his name made headlines today that went beyond newspaper financial pages.

An internal document from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, obtained by the Long Island newspaper Newsday, stated that the William Lyon Co. in 1985 got HUD’s approval to buy 827 acres of south county land even though it was initially the lowest bidder.

The report alleged that Lyon, a major contributor to the Republican Party, had received preferential treatment from a high-ranking Housing and Urban Development official.

Lyon could not be reached for comment Sunday.

Tom Fuentes, Orange County’s Republican Party chairman, said he didn’t know how much Lyon had contributed to Republican national and state political candidates over the years. But, Fuentes said, “his role has been major.”

Fuentes said he believed that Lyon was a significant contributor to President Bush’s election committee and had participated in a Bush “Team 100” effort that involved $100,000-per-person contributions.

Recently, since Lyon acquired the mansion in the private equestrian community of Coto de Caza in southeast Orange County, Lyon has hosted fund-raisers at the estate. In June, for instance, he was host of a $1,000-a-plate event for U.S. Sen. Pete Wilson (R-San Diego).

And in April, 1988, Lyon hosted a $100,000-per-couple fund-raiser to benefit Ronald Reagan’s presidential library in Ventura County. The president and Nancy Reagan talked about the library and chatted with about 45 guests who lunched on iced tomato soup.