Temple Hills and Mystic Hills, Laguna Beach

Artist's concept of Temple Hills, 1924

Charles Upton asks: "What is the history between 'Mystic Hills' and 'Temple Hills' in Laguna Beach? And might you have any history specifically on the 'Mystic Hills' timeline?”

Well, after a little digging, I do now, Charles! Thanks for asking. Here's what I found out:

TEMPLE HILLS - Laguna Beach pioneer and real estate speculator Joseph S. "Joe" Thurston bought some hilltop land that had belonged to George Rogers. Thurston dubbed it "Temple Hills" and by 1924 was trying to sell parcels there for residential use. But Thurston faced financial problems. In 1927 Clifton J. Platt of Pasadena took over the development process and subdivision maps were filed. Platt made Volney B. Cox (who developed Beverly Hills) manager of the project.

"Temple Hills" sign visible in this view looking inland from Heisler Park, across the Victor Hugo Inn's parking lot and Coast Highway, circa 1940.

In his 1947 book, Laguna Beach of Early Days, Thurston wrote about Temple Hills: "The hills have always had a fascination for me. I enjoy walking over their sloping, graceful contours, the hills that I have been so familiar with ever since I was a small child. Everyone would wander in the hills seeking inspiration, and get acquainted with them, while they are furnishing physical as well as spiritual strength. They are the temples of creation and it would be a drab country if we did not have the hills. Some years later, the question arose as to what we should call them, and in casting around for a name it was finally decided that they should be called TEMPLE HILLS.”

However, the name may actually predate Thurston's real estate aspirations. Historian Don Meadows writes, "During the early days of the art colony the [entire] range of hills behind Laguna Beach was called Temple Hills. Later the name was applied to a subdivision on the same locality."

As for lots in Mystic Hills, Los Angeles Times, 3-20-1960

MYSTIC HILLS - While some homes in the Mystic Hills area – high above Laguna's Main Beach – were built as early as the 1920s, the name Mystic Hills didn’t begin appearing in real estate advertising until June 1959. The development's wide roads and utilities marked the start of Coast Realty Co.'s development of the Mystic Hills Estate subdivision. The building boom at Mystic Hills extended well into the 1960s. Newspaper ads promoted "Ocean view lots. Wide avenues. Model homes open for inspection. Free membership to Laguna Beach Country Club."

I don't know why or specifically by whom the real estate marketing name "Mystic Hills" was selected for this neighborhood. But it does have an artsy ring to it that works well with the "artists' colony" image that Laguna retained long after most artists were priced out of the market. 

Mystic Hills was one of the worst-hit neighborhoods during the big Laguna Beach Fire of 1993. Between 199 and 286 homes (depending on which reports you read) burned down in Mystic Hills, partly due to inadequate water pressure in the area. These suddenly-vacant lots launched a second major building boom there in the months and years that followed.