The murderous saga of Andrew CunananWhen Vulgar Favors, Maureen Orth's book about the murderous saga of Andrew Cunanan, hit the best-seller lists last month, a national audience was offered a sinister portrait of San Diego, …
August 28, 2023
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Stories by Susan Vaughn
Sad story of Andrew Cunanan and even sadder, his mom
Author of the novel that shook Mission Hills
Oakley Hll explains The Corpus of Joe Bailey In San Diego, Corpus of Joe Bailey also made a noteworthy entrance. The book was denounced from San Diego pulpits for being too sexy and provoked Mission …
August 6, 2023
Rancho Santa Fe: elevator from the 12-car garage
Sequester yourself in the Secret Ranch Welcome to “The Secret Ranch,” a 12-acre estate with more than 12,400 square feet of living space under roof located in the exclusive Covenant of Rancho Santa Fe. “This …
July 22, 2023
Cinema insights from Kensington Video owners
Movie lover's paradise Meanwhile, Blockbuster and Hollywood Video have shuttered their local outlets. Owner and buyer Guy Hanford understands why. “When you went into a Blockbuster or Hollywood to rent a film, you never engaged …
July 2, 2023
Tom Shaw and heavenly transport on Imperial Avenue
Apostolic Prayer Temple, house of exaltation I came here, to the Apostolic Prayer Temple, a storefront in between a nightclub and a fish market in Encanto, to see the Rev. Tom Shaw in the Gospel …
December 18, 2022
Personal history of La Mesa, the charm of Encanto
Where Sweet Peace and Love Abidith During school vacations, Carl and I hopped the freight train that chugged through twice a week. It stopped in La Mesa to unload flatbeds of planks to the lumberyard. …
February 5, 2022
Cave Couts, Old Town loveletters, San Diego's first school
Cave Johnson Couts Ysidora's brother-in-law, Don Abel Stearns, gave her the Guajome land grant surrounding Mission San Luis Rey. Couts resigned his commission with the Army and built a ranch on land that “had neither …
August 28, 2021
Integration of Encanto, 125 freeway ruins Lemon Grove, Allied Gardens ambivalent about mansions
Everybody I Need to Know I Met in Kindergarten “My dad told me that blacks were moving in because they couldn’t go anywhere else,” Kenny recalls. “But he told me they were just like us.” …
July 4, 2021
San Diego's Victorians, bungalows, craftsmen, the sky-scrapers of downtown
Unfashionable Castles This Stick/Eastlake house, which stood at the southeast corner of Second and Fir, was designed by Comstock and Trotsche for John Sherman, a cousin of General William Tecumseh Sherman. From 1892 until 1965, …
June 7, 2021
Would-be feminists on sand in PB, why the Yukon is dangerous, great white sharks lurk nearby
Pretty Woman Ann, 21, who filled out her bikini in a perfectly proportionate manner, said she was satisfied with her figure. She listened serenely as I spoke with her friends, but her voice boomed with …
March 14, 2021
Beautiful Saint Malo, Hillel vs. La Jolla, University City astir, the Children's Pool rift
Halfway between Disneyland and the San Diego Zoo I waded through the ankle-deep water toward Saint Malo. Waves tumbled against the shore, the wind was merciless, but I held my Lancome bag high and waded …
February 20, 2021
National City – still up and coming
National City – a Mayor Daley-type political machine To the south of San Diego, within range of the shadows cast by the Coronado Bridge, lies National City. Frequently described as the “backlot" of San Diego, …
August 17, 2020
Oceanside – eclecticism reigns
Homes at end of Oceanside Blvd. claim emergency The city never got approval,” says Mackin. “They just started doing it. These homeowners had carte blanche to put as much rip rap as they wanted on …
July 13, 2020
Encinitas, not a neighborhood but a kingdom
Bicyclists dominate Caltrans meeting About half of the meeting’s 40 attendees indicated they were cyclists, and will use the proposed bike lane. But even hard-core cyclists were skeptical of some sections of the proposed eight-mile …
June 29, 2020
El Cajon – from rednecks to immigrants
The slow end of the Kalasho regime At a city council meeting in September Elia spoke publicly to Kalasho: “Ben, you need help. It hurts me to see fellow Chaldeans spiral like this. It might …
May 4, 2020
Best Reader stories from 1999
Was Jesse Ventura a SEAL or a UDT guy? Well, I thought, Jesse certainly looks and sounds like many SEALs I’d known during my 16 years in the Teams. But I’d never known or even …
January 25, 2020
Mission Hills – don't be fooled
Book-lovers chew the fat at the Mission Hills Library His watch tells him 6:45. This Mission Hills branch stays open tonight — it’s Monday. He slaps the book closed, reshelves it, glances to his left. …
December 30, 2019
Rancho Santa Fe – the most luxury homes in California
San Diego Polo Club site developed by Heaven's Gate Exclusiveness breeds itself, so it’s little wonder that when the San Diego Polo Club in Rancho Santa Fe needed a Web page designed, they turned to …
December 16, 2019
Encanto – snubbed but proud
On top of this little corner of the world Here on Skyline Drive, great swaths of sward stretch out below, springy and green. Here, there are vacant lots littered with possibility, within sight of a …
May 13, 2019
Invasion of the Tall Buildings
Perhaps San Diego’s two screwdrivers, the Hyatt and One America — harbingers of shapes to come — are tools for its future. With luck, Emerald Plaza may serve as a New Age talisman against overbuilding and outrageous flash.
March 30, 2000
San Diego's splendid Craftsmen homes
“In my neighborhood, people are removing aluminum siding and stucco from the 1950s and 1960s. They’re stripping the paint from their homes’ redwood shingles. And they’re pulling up wall-to-wall carpeting to expose the hardwood floors.”
Beach people who aren't bums – from Cardiff to Coronado
“You can never come back from Dog Beach without having a laugh. Once I saw a little dog running by with a life jacket on. There’s always somebody jumping in the sand, chasing their tail, taking a swim.”
October 7, 1999
El Cajon's crowded discontents
“They called it ‘The Jungle’ where I lived," says Michelle Hull, now a Spring Valley resident but formerly an Emerald Avenue apartment resident. “You could see people doing drug deals in their cars — my nine-year-old daughter saw that.
July 22, 1999
A guide to San Diego's long-lived Victorian houses
Another prominent San Diego attorney-turned-judge named E.W. Britt built this nine-room Queen Anne and later sold the residence to newspaper magnate W. Scripps, for use as a townhouse while Scripps's Miramar Ranch was under construction.
July 1, 1999
San Diego's master planned communities
Already, architects are experimenting with “Row House Revival," narrow unattached homes harkening Victorian urban dwellings, and “Courtyard Clusters," tiny cottages in circular 'covered wagon” formation as options for first-time buyers short on cash.
April 15, 1999
Saint Malo – Oceanside's best-kept secret
A real estate agent had warned me, “The residents of Saint Malo are very classy people,” so I had packed a bottle of light, fruity Domaine Les Grands Groux Sancerre (1996) and a loaf of fresh bread.
April 1, 1999
Kensington ends at Monroe, not El Cajon Bl.
With only two avenues of ingress — Kensington Drive and Marlborough Avenue — it remains secluded, quiet, and difficult to locate. Which is fine with its inhabitants who joke, “We’ve never left because we can’t find our way out.”
March 11, 1999
Heavy breathing at Sandalwood Court, Encinitas cul-de-sac
“You get a lot for your money,” she says of Sandalwood. “Homes like those would be about $900,000 in La Jolla. There’s minimal new development in Encinitas, so there’ll be hardly any other new products with ocean views.”
January 21, 1999
The discreet charm of Encanto
One of Klauber’s daughters remarked that there was not much to do in the environs [of Encanto] except look at the views and smell the sage and tar weed. But that, she said, was enough.
December 3, 1998
Lisa Whitney, relentless La Jolla real estate broker
Lisa Whitney's cerulean-blue Jaguar glides through the streets of La Jolla at 8:15 a.m. Its driver is bound for a "pitching session" with the La Jolla Real Estate Brokers Association. She is dressed in a …
November 19, 1998
The dueling architecture styles of UCSD
That year a water main ruptured near the library during construction work, sending 1.5 million gallons of water rushing toward the structure. The library’s electronic motion detectors opened the doors, welcoming the deluge into the library's interior.
October 29, 1998
Lost among dream homes in Rancho Santa Fe
“The Spiro house" looks gloomy from the outside. Cathy, Judy, and Angie debate whether the home’s showing agent is required to tell potential buyers what transpired in the house. “I think she has to,” Cathy says.
September 17, 1998
Mission Hills' weird history
Before Captain Henry James “Ninety Fathom” Johnston plunked down $16.25 for 65 acres of prime Mission Hills real estate in 1869, the area was a wasteland of weeds, scrub, and chaparral; a “hopeless tangle of …
February 5, 1998
National City's eclectic architecture
The California bungalow had its origins in India, another crackling-hot destination in need of cheap, cool housing. The bengalas, as the conquering Brits called them, were small, open, one-story huts with wide verandas.
August 28, 1997