An island by no other name

Mathis Winkler

HARBOR ISLAND -- That the trees had to go didn’t make Jean Watt happy.

After all, some six decades ago, she’d planted many of the pine and

eucalyptus giants. Watt and Allan Beek, whose father Joseph began selling

lots on Harbor Island in 1937, had been a little gullible at the time.

“[Joseph Beek] gave us a treasure map and got us to dig the holes,”

she said. “He probably gave us a bunch of blind leads and we found the

treasure at the last hole.”

Allen Beek said he remembers the story a little different. While he

and Watt watered the young plantlings, the treasure hunt had been

arranged for pure pleasure.

But despite some sadness over the loss of the trees, she’s not going

to hold it against Donald Bren, the Irvine Co.’s elusive chairman, who

plans to build a new house on the land.

The trees “had great, blue heron nests,” Watt said. “They like the

tallest thing they can find and make a huge mess. It’s disturbing to see

the loss of nesting places, but [herons] need a tree out in a park, where

it doesn’t matter.”

In fact, Watt’s not at all upset that Bren’s coming on the island.

While the former City Council member was instrumental in bringing

Greenlight -- Newport Beach’s new slow-growth law -- to victory last

November and Bren’s company backed the initiative’s opposition with

$427,000, she knows how to separate politics from neighbor relations.

“You live compatibly and ignore your other differences,” she said. “I

don’t have an issue with [Bren] as a person. It’s an issue that’s bigger

than that.”

But even if Bren and Watt don’t become best friends, the land

developer, who currently has a home on nearby Linda Isle, won’t have any

trouble fitting in on Harbor Island, where likely soon-to-be ambassador

George Argyros lives just down the road.

Bren’s proposed 7,275-square-foot home resembles a Roman villa and

will add to the eclectic mix of houses along the island’s single road.

There’s a couple of Spanish-style ones. Others resemble colonial

buildings on the East Coast or mimic England’s Tudor homes. Watt’s house,

built in the 1960s, seems like the kind of place dot-comers would drool

over. Down to the minimalist furniture and a basin filled with stones in

the living room, everything’s in pristine condition.

“I’ve got acoustical ceilings in the garage,” she said, adding that

architect Bill Ficker, another adversary in the Greenlight campaign, had

designed the house.

While blueprints submitted to the city’s building department don’t

reveal interior designs, the Brens -- the 68-year-old billionaire married

his third wife, Brigitte, in 1998 -- will be able to enjoy a spa and an

exercise room on the first floor.

There’s also an open, interior courtyard and a 56- by 22-foot swimming

pool facing the bay. Upstairs are guest bedrooms, a master bedroom and

“his” and “her” bathrooms with walk-in closets. (While his wife’s

bathroom includes a bathtub, Bren will have to make do with a shower.)

Irvine Co. officials said Bren declined to talk about his pending new

home, and other island residents also seemed alarmed when asked to

describe their neighborhood on the water.

A gate and a guard prevent passersby from simply crossing the small

bridge to Harbor Island, which sits between Balboa Island and Linda Isle

and where even the street is privately owned by residents.

It wasn’t always that way, Watt said. When her parents bought two lots

-- one for $5,000, the other for $2,500 after agreeing to build a house

on it within a year -- visitors could circle around the island’s beaches

and come to a public pier facing the bay.

“I think [Joseph Beek] would be upset that we didn’t keep the [public]

sidewalk and the beaches,” Watt said. “And he would have wanted [to keep]

the big trees, too.”