Mike Stockstill and I are pleased to announce that UK-based Routledge and the American Real Estate Society will publish our book early in 2022. It’s called THE BIG PLAN.
In 1960 the Irvine Ranch began a rapid transformation from 93,000-acres of citrus, row crops, and ranching to become a vast realm of master-planned development that includes a major research university. Our story begins in 1937 when the James Irvine Foundation was established and concludes in 1977 when, after a bidding war, the foundation sold its controlling interest in the Irvine Company to an investment consortium led by Al Taubman, Charles Allen, Joan Irvine, and Donald Bren.
The image on the draft of the cover is from 1964. It shows (l to r) Daniel Aldrich, first Chancellor of UC Irvine, architect William Pereira, whose firm prepared the original master plan for the Irvine Ranch in 1961, and Charles Thomas, then president of the Irvine Company. They are standing in front of an exhibit of anticipated development of the core of University Town Center and the central campus of UC Irvine.