Starting a Youth Movement

A rebirth of sorts is underway in the eclectic seaside neighborhood of Capistrano Beach in Dana Point.

The beach area, visited by sailor and author Richard Henry Dana in 1835 and developed by the Doheny family in the 1920s, is experiencing a youth movement, with young families moving in to establish roots.

“There seems to be a good, positive energy in terms of rejuvenation,” said Chad George, 31, who moved to Capistrano Beach in 1992. He and his wife have an 11-month-old son.

“It’s really an interesting little enclave that’s got a lot of history.”

Bordered by the Pacific Ocean, San Clemente, Interstate 5 and San Juan Creek, the community is roughly one square mile and includes about 3,000 homes and 7,900 residents. Home prices range from the mid-$200,000s to several million for bluff-top homes.

With quaint beach cottages and ocean-view homes, owned by retirees and families with small children alike, it is a community that blends the old with the new. It is also a neighborhood where people know each other, as well as local grocery store clerks, by first name.

New residents Henrik and Monica Andersen are renovating a house on Palisades Drive that they bought last September. Both said they couldn’t believe how friendly the children-filled community is with neighbors sharing fruit and gardening tips and even leaving flowers at their gate before the birth of their second son, Christof, two weeks ago.

“It’s been overwhelming how nice everyone’s been,” Henrik Andersen, 33, said. “We couldn’t be happier.”

The friendly, small-town attitude that seeps through the community also seems to have sparked civic spirit.

Capistrano Beach residents considered plans in the mid-1980s to incorporate into their own city. But after discovering they needed a larger tax base to support their efforts, residents opted to join Dana Point when it incorporated in 1989, according to Beverly Sels, Capistrano Beach resident and Dana Point Historical Society member.

Over the years, the relationship between the city and Capistrano Beach has been rocky. Residents south of San Juan Creek have battled City Hall for better services.

“We feel we’ve maybe not gotten our fair share from the city,” said Ann Romano, president of the Capistrano Beach Community Assn. “We’re trying not to whine, but we really feel we haven’t got the attention we deserve.”

More recently, residents have been fighting to replace about 60 historic--but diseased--Canary Island date palms that line Avenida Las Palmas and other streets. Planted by Doheny, many of the trees are dying of fusarium wilt, a virus that constricts water flow through the tree.

A year ago the city said it would spend $203,000 to replace the palms. In February the new council majority voted to stop that plan, but it recently set aside $100,000 for the trees.

Residents like the Andersens, who spoke out at City Council meetings about the palms, said they want to be involved in community issues to help preserve the area’s charm and beauty for the new generation of Capistrano Beach children.

Catrina Crawford knows all about the area’s character. She grew up here. Now married and pregnant with her second child, she has returned to raise her children, buying her childhood home on Avenida Las Palmas from her parents.

“One of the nice things about Capistrano Beach is over the years it’s maintained its small-town charm and appeal,” Crawford said. “Basically, it’s [composed] of people who live a relaxed lifestyle.”

Crawford’s next-door neighbor, Ann Worthington, who moved to Capistrano Beach with her husband from Dallas in 1995, agreed.

“People that have lived in California all their lives don’t know how lucky they are,” said Worthington, 31 and mother of an 17-month-old boy. “We think we live in paradise.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

NEIGHBORHOODS: Capistrano Beach

Bounded by: Pacific Ocean, city of San Clemente, San Juan Creek and Interstate 5

Population: Approximately 7,900

Hot topic: The community is experiencing a rejuvenation as new families with young children are moving in.