Irvine Company

The Irvine Company traces its history to a 185-square-mile (480 km2) ranch founded by James Irvine I, Benjamin and Thomas Flint, and Llewellyn Bixby in 1864 by combining three adjoining Mexican land grants. A drought in 1864 killed the livestock of Jose Antonio Sepulveda, forcing him to sell his coastal Rancho San Joaquin to Irvine and his partners. In 1866 they purchased Rancho Lomas de Santiago from William Wolfskill; largely unfarmable due to its steep, hilly terrain, it had been used mainly as a sheep ranch. In 1868 Flint, Bixby and Irvine were among the claimants of a title lawsuit that divided Rancho Santiago de Santa Ana.

Unlike other early Newport Beach landowners, Irvine and his partners had no interest in subdividing and selling, intent, instead, upon identifying the most lucrative agricultural uses for their enormous 120,000-acre tract of land (49,000 ha). The Irish-born Irvine met Collis Huntington, soon to become one of the Central Pacific Railroad (CPR) magnates, on a trip across the Atlantic. Rather than cementing a friendship, a disagreement that lasted throughout their lives resulted. When Huntington's Southern Pacific Railroad (SP) needed Irvine's land for its route between Orange County and San Diego, Irvine refused. When SP crews began laying tracks on Irvine land without permission, ranch hands with shotguns confronted the crews. Eventually, Irvine gave the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway permission to build on his ranch.

When Irvine died in 1886, trustees, left in control of the ranch until his son James II (b.1867) turned 25, tried to sell it at auction. When this auction was declared illegal, James II took over the reins of the ranch and accelerated efforts to increase its agricultural production. In 1894, he incorporated the land holdings as the Irvine Company. Between the late 1800s to the 1970s, the Irvine Company continued to also run cattle operations on the property, with "Bommer Canyon Cattle Camp" serving as its center. They also ran sheep. James Irvine remarked in 1867 that he and his men "rode about [the Irvine Ranch] a good deal, sometimes coming home in the evening after a thirty- or forty-mile ride pretty thoroughly tired out, but we had to do it in order to see much of the ranch and the flock." At the time, his Irvine Company had been purchasing further adjoining parcels of land, "[so] there [was] considerable riding to be done, if one [was] to see much of [the ranch]." After James Irvine's death, majority control of the company passed to the James Irvine Foundation.

In 1953, the National Scout Jamboree was held on Irvine Ranch land in the area of what is now Fashion Island Shopping Center. Jamboree Road, running from Newport Beach to Orange, was built to allow people to travel to the jamboree from nearby train stations. In 1961, the Irvine Company sold 990 acres to the University of California system for $1.00 to develop a new campus, which became the University of California, Irvine. The school was named in honor of the Irvine family, not the city of Irvine, which did not yet exist. Three years later, the company sold, at a discounted price, an additional 510 acres to the university. During the early 1960s, the university and company, together with architect William Pereira, designed the Irvine Ranch Master Plan for developing the surrounding area. The city of Irvine, officially incorporated in 1971, grew around the campus.

By the late 1970s, the Irvine Company had ceased its cattle business. The foundation needed to sell the company after the passage of the Tax Reform Act of 1969. In 1977, a group led by A. Alfred Taubman and including real estate developer Donald Bren bought the company from the Irvine Foundation. The Bommer Canyon area was sold to the City of Irvine between 1981 and 1982, purchased with grants obtained from the 1974 California Bond Act. By 1983, Bren was the majority owner of the Irvine Company. By 1996, he had purchased all outstanding shares and was sole owner.

The Irvine Company develops suburban master-planned communities throughout central and southern Orange County, California and residential buildings in Santa Monica, Silicon Valley, and San Diego County. The company also owns and manages office buildings in Milpitas, San Jose, Sunnyvale, downtown San Diego, Mission Valley, San Diego, La Jolla Village/University City, Sorrento Mesa, Del Mar Heights, Newport Center, UCI locations, West Los Angeles, Pasadena, Chicago, and New York City.

The 93,000-acre (380 km2) Irvine Ranch remains the core holding of The Irvine Company. It encompasses almost one fifth of Orange County, from the Pacific Ocean and Newport Harbor, Laguna Beach, and Santa Ana Canyon, to the boundary of the Cleveland National Forest. Of the total ranch area, 44,000 acres (180 km2) is retained for development whilst the remainder - principally rugged canyons, wetlands, and water districts - are maintained as wilderness and recreational preserves collectively known as the Irvine Ranch Natural Landmarks.

In August 2014, the Irvine Company announced plans to donate and preserve 2,500 additional acres of land previously approved for housing.

In part because of its land preservation grants, in 2018 Irvine Company was named Business Philanthropist of the Year by the Greater Irvine Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber also cited gifts of more than $220 million to city schools and universities.