Family Lane - Shady Canyon draws couples with children. By Craig Reem o matter how well you plan a community, surprises blossom. At Shady Canyon, where lots sell for an average of $1 million and custom homes are built for sky's the limit, it would seem the 55-and-older crowd would be the almost-exclusive resident. The expected buyers, the conventional wisdom went, would be older people, better-established financially, more time to play golf, empty-nesters. The surprise is that several younger couples with children still at home have bought in the Irvine community. Sure, they have money, and some of them are athletes who earn far more than brain surgeons. Craig Johnson, who played nearly eight seasons with the Los Angeles Kings and appeared in 39 games with the Mighty Ducks this season before making a team change, is an example. Now the 31-year-old forward is far from his nearly completed home, playing with the Toronto Maple Leafs. But the former Manhattan Beach resident and his Orange County-raised wife, Brittany, are putting the final touches to a 5,000-square-foot home that will comfortably fit their three children - Eric, 5, Ryan, 2, and Shea, 1. They move in in May. Johnson's decision is primed by his childhood. He grew up in St. Paul, Minn., where land is a given for homeowners, unlike in Orange County, where listening to your neighbor singing in the shower just across the zero-lot line is not so unusual. "As a kid, we'd play hockey, we'd play football, we'd play baseball and whiffleball all in the back yard," Johnson says. " I really cherished all that land; those are some of my fondest memories." "We've been in Manhattan Beach, and we love the area, but what we didn't like is that we didn't have any land." The couple are building on more than a half-acre of land (24,000 square feet) - which by comparison is much more than most of the biggest lots in North Tustin, one of Orange County's few areas where lot sizes traditionally spike over 11,000 square feet. Shady Canyon lots are a minimum one-half acre, a premium in Irvine where some single-family detached homes sit on just 4,600 square feet of lot space. "It's somewhere where our kids can play," he says. "I want to kind of give them what I had as a child." An added perk is the nature preserve that winds through the property. "Everything about the area attracted us to it," Johnson says. "...You're offered this little haven; it's a place to relax. People who are moving in have lived elsewhere and want more of a secluded area, in an area where they are close to their work, and still close to major areas. I think that's bringing people in." The couple have owned two homes - their first was in Orange, where Brittany was raised; she now lives with the children in Anaheim Hills. And, although Johnson is a mere 31 years old, in his profession, retirement is already close at hand. A few more seasons and a nature preserve walk will be part of his daily routine. The private golf course may draw him as well, if Johnson opts to become a member. ("With three kids, I don't know how much time I have to play golf," he admits.) For now, Brittany Johnson puts the final touches on the home's plans and prepares the children for the big move. She has been focused on the two-year process, choosing the architectural elements of Provence. The home has six bedrooms, although one will be a media room for the children. There is a downstairs bedroom for guests, an office, 5 1/2 baths, and room outside for a pool/jacuzzi, a small orchard, and lots of grass in which to play and romp. She says the Irvine schools were an important element to the couple's decision to build here. And the yard: "It was really important to Craig to be able to get out and play ball with the boys." "We plan to stay here after retirement," she says, "because he just loves the county. And the weather doesn't hurt." Oldest child Eric, 5, is keenly aware that change is on the way. But, as his father says, it doesn't matter so much where the family lives, but how close the little one can be to Dad. "He just wants to be where I am," Johnson says from an East Coast hotel. "So he wants to be in Toronto right now. But he's excited about it; we're in a smaller place right now, so we talk about the land and what he will be able to do." OCM

Shady's All-Star team f residents of Shady Canyon ever decide to form a city league softball team, they would be dangerous. Consider this lineup of pro athletes who are now Shady Canyon property owners or golf club members: Craig Johnson, forward Toronto Maple Leafs (hockey) Guy Hebert, ex-goalie Anaheim Mighty Ducks (hockey) Shawn Green, outfielder Los Angeles Dodger (baseball) Mark McGwire, homerun champion St. Louis Cardinal (baseball) Mark Langston, ex-pitcher Anaheim Angels (baseball) Mike Witt, ex-pitcher Anaheim Angels (baseball) Kenny Bernstein, drag racing champion (motorcars) Lindsay Davenport, Wimbeldon champion (tennis) Jim Rome, national radio/TV sports talk host (broadcasting)

The Canyon's Allure

True, a story about Shady Canyon is about a housing community that is both unusually wide open (many Orange County communities have 13, 14, 15 homes to the acre) and only for the very rich (by the time you buy a lot and build a custom home, you're in the range of $3 million, or $6 million, or even more). But unlike other prestigious coastal and near-coastal addresses - Malibu comes to mind - the rural feel and strict architectural guidelines promise to create a place that is more about hawks soaring above than Hollywood beckoning.

The exquisitely talented, but understated baseball star, Shawn Green, is more likely to be your typical neighbor than a couple who might duplicate a Justin Timberlake-Janet Jackson halftime show. More big names may soon move in. Venus Williams, the tennis star whose business acumen in fashion may make her a major player on two fronts, has looked at lots. So has wide receiver Keyshawn Johnson, a flashy, sometimes brilliant wide receiver who so far has not lived up to the hype heaped on him when he entered pro football from USC. He'll have plenty of time to contemplate his career walking the lengthy 12th hole.

Living at Shady Canyon is not for every well-to-do Orange County resident. Former Mighty Duck goalie Guy Hebert is too enamored by the Pacific Ocean; he lives in Newport Beach. "My wife and I looked at some of the lots and had an interest, but we are quite happy where we are," he says. "If we move, it will be closer to the water."

Golf draws in the non-pro in search of perfection just as it bedevils the pros who know there is no such thing. Hebert is a member of the private club and has played with a number of the new residents at Shady Canyon - famous or not. He is well aware of McGwire's love of the sport and the constant training to improve himself.

"He has to give me a couple of strokes every time we play," Hebert says with a laugh.

It would be missing the point to downplay the exclusivity of the golf club with athletes, both current and retired, who find the beauty of the canyon and the private nature of the golf club to their liking. Shady Canyon may well develop its own mystique. And for Hebert, he expects the course to keep him in the challenge for some time. It may seem hard for the everyday athlete to understand, but someone like Michael Jordan can be the best in one sport yet never approach the elite in his newest passion. The difficulty of golf, and its subtle factors, play a role. For Hebert, golf is an extension of who he is.

"Any athlete is going to be competitive by nature, and look to do something in their offseason. Golf is a game that tests you mentally and physically. It's not like stopping a 100 mph slapshot, but quite a bit of skill is involved; it's a real test of your ability."

There is also the notion of the lone wolf, alone while addressing the ball on a great expanse of fairway. Hebert - one of the Ducks' most treasured players and the first player acquired in the 1993-94 expansion draft who now heads the Alumni Association - draws a parallel to his life at the net. "Goalies are pretty introspective; you stand there by yourself in your own little island. For me, I think the same notion applies; this is something that is relaxing but also allows you to have the competitive juices going."

Hebert grew up in Troy, N.Y. and moved to Tustin Ranch 11 years ago. He and his wife moved to Newport Beach about four years ago. He enjoys the informality of the club: "I can bring my 6-year-old daughter there and she can run down the fairway."

Hired 10 years ago

"Let me tell you what this has that nothing else will have," The Irvine Co.'s Davis says of his main project. While he oversees all housing for the company, he was specifically hired a decade ago to put his imprint on this project.

"The density is really, really low in a highly urbanized region," he explains. "Typically in Irvine, a community has 10 or 11 homes per acre; this has 0.4 homes per acre."

In a county where land for large development is about exhausted, save for some city of Irvine property and plans for a portion of Rancho Mission Viejo, developers have turned to smaller infill projects - turning underused property such as failed strip malls into rows of boutique homes. Property such as Shady Canyon is now mostly set aside for open space.

In a city of exclusivity, Shady Canyon goes to the top of the class. While Irvine prices continue to skyrocket - one home in the new portion of Northwood sold for $800,000 about two years ago and a much smaller home in the older portion of Northwood sold for $850,000 in the past year - even the million-dollar properties don't approach the kind of money needed to build here.

"To the best of our knowledge, with all of the land available for development in Orange County going forward, with the exception of a very limited area in South Orange County, there are no other opportunities to do this in the region," Davis says.

As recently as five or six years ago, cattle still grazed on Shady Canyon's expensive turf as part of the company's agricultural operation. From cattle grazing to McGwire building would seem a short period of time. In fact, Davis gives a bit of a war-torn glance when that suggestion is made. He's been working on the plans since he was hired in 1993, almost to the day the Laguna Beach fire swept through and scarred the land. (Groundbreaking was 2000; the first lots went on sale the weekend after 9/11.) Today, by the way, many of the burned oak trees have survived and thrived, as have swaths of cacti. About the only evidence of the fire can be seen in those burned-out trunks where trees have sprouted once again.

Design changes

The challenge for Davis was to oversee a community unlike any other on the Irvine Ranch. Perhaps the key decision was to build the Tom Fazio-designed golf course without the annoyance of homes bumping against the fairways. That makes the open space of the golf course truly so.

"The land is beautiful, absolutely gorgeous natural land," Davis says.

Fazio, known for using the natural contours to build a course, turned relatively little dirt (about 1 million cubic yards, roughly 20 percent of the typical course development). He went around rock outcroppings and the oak trees and sycamore groves, rather than pulling them out or cutting them down or flattening natural land curves. In the golf brochure, he is quoted: "The ultimate goal is to have it appear as if nothing has been done..."

"After that, we looked at what was left over and designed the residential to fit into that," Davis says. "The typical real estate development project is, you deal with the economics of how you design the housing community you want, then you attempt to fit the golf course into that."

Doing it the other way, he explains, took twice as much land for the golf course.

Grading is ongoing for the obvious - roads, utilities, building pads. But most everything else seems like it has always been.

The natural features remain. For a price, the picture is near-perfect. OCM