Ray Watson, Former President of The Irvine Company, Shares Creative Intentions for the Initial Design of Woodbridge

Ray Watson, President of the Irvine Company during Woodbridge’s opening in 1976, was the man in charge of designing and creating Woodbridge Village Association. In commemoration of Woodbridge’s 25th Anniversary, WVA Recreation Manager Ralph Redington and WVA Facilities Committee member Dave Mabie sat down with Mr. Watson at his house to discuss the history of Woodbridge.

Q. Can you take us back to the early planning stages of Woodbridge?

A. I’ll take you back to when we first started planning which was 1973. I went to the Board of Directors of the Irvine Company, and I asked for the first capital budget to start work on putting in the structure. I remember being asked by one of the Board members, because we were in the middle of a recession, “Mr. Watson, can you guarantee that when this opens in 1976 that we won’t be in a recession?” Well, nobody can guarantee that but the Board took a risk. We proceeded along until early 1976 when we began sending out teasers. We put a wall around the project so no one could see what was going on as they drove up and down the street. We then sent out letters to the community and elsewhere, a little teaser about what we were going to do. We sent a little seed of a tree on a card because we were planting a lot of trees, and asked them to send back the card if they were interested. Our plan was to start a massive advertising plan in May of ’76, but by early May we had received over 50,000 responses and we cancelled other advertising plans. Our main concern at this time was crowd control, and by early June we had over 10,000 people show up. It was incredible and they were in line. I heard people were selling their spots in line for $500 or $1000. We had a great response to Woodbridge; it was probably the greatest response of anything done by the Irvine Company and maybe by any other company.

Q. Was the original design to have 22 pools and 2 lakes with lagoons?

A. Let me tell you about that. We had already done Turtle Rock and University Park, so I wanted to link the northern and southern parts of the city. The one thing we were trying to do was create different villages with distinct characters. I remember writing a memo saying that I think one of the characters should be recreation. Let’s get as many family recreation facilities as we can in this village, so it gets known for its recreation diversity. So that’s why you see so many different kinds of pools and parks. The main idea was to have a recreational community connected by paths. We also came up with the idea of lakes. I don’t know if you ever heard the story, but the water that goes into the North Lake Lagoon is warmer than the water that goes into the South Lake Lagoon. This happened by accident in the sense that when we were drilling for water for the North Lake, we hit a natural hot water spring.

Q. How was the design of the North Lake decided regarding the recreation path around it?

A. Well, there was a lot of internal debate, which is typical on any kind of development, because you are always trying to balance what is best for the community. I wanted people who live a block from the lake to be able to identify with the lake the same as people who live on the lake. So, I started out saying we are going to have a path all the way around the lake that is open to everybody. They can bike, walk, whatever they want to do. But the real estate side of it said, “But look how much money you are sacrificing, because a house on the water is worth a lot more.” You will notice the path does not go all the way around the lake, and that was really a compromise, houses on one side of the lake and a recreation path on the other.

Q. My final question is, as you look back through the twenty-five years, how do you and the Irvine Company feel about how Woodbridge has turned out?

A. Woodbridge is considered within the Irvine Company as probably the bell winner of the company. I mean they are very proud and rightly so of all of their villages, but Woodbridge has received more attention than any other development. People who come and visit the Irvine Ranch from Europe and Japan know Woodbridge and they can’t wait to see it. So, Woodbridge is probably the best marketing for good planning around the country, because it is one very desirable place to live. People are happy and it is a financial success.