By Hunter Fuentes and Jon Stordahl
The House That Citrus Built
A hundred years ago citrus was king in our county. Tens of thousands of acres of lemon and orange groves covered the area. Farming is a hard and unpredictable life; pestilence, drought, weather all conspire against success. As the early twentieth century humorist Will Rogers once noted, “The farmer has to be an optimist or he wouldn’t still be a farmer.” There is a science to agriculture. In the 1920’s and 1930’s Dr. Dean D. Waynick was Orange County’s leading expert on all matters citrus, especially the Valencia Orange. His expertise made him wealthy. He loved oranges, his family, and Laguna Beach.
Vintage post card. Photo from the Los Angeles Times.
Around 1927 Dr. Waynick and his wife, Berniece, built a simple board and batten beach cottage on Cliff Drive on the bluffs overlooking Crescent Bay. The Laguna cottage was their weekend and summer getaway. Their primary residence was on North Flower Street in Floral Park, Santa Ana. The Waynick’s had a son, Earl, who was born in 1918. The family enjoyed professional, social, and financial success. Life was good until 1936. Tragically, within a year of one another, Earl lost his father, and then his mother shortly after.
Up to this time, Earl Waynick had enjoyed a charmed childhood. By 18, he was an orphan. Because the law at the time considered one a minor until age 21, his inheritance was administered by the court. Earl grew up quickly. Two months after his mother’s death, he married Nina Dusenbury. She was from a prominent Detroit family and had an aunt living in Laguna. The young couple met during one of Nina’s frequent visits to our town. A Long Beach Press-Telegram article from November 27, 1937 noted that Earl successfully petitioned the court to grant him $10,000 from his trust to build a beautiful home on the cliffs above Crescent Bay, just below his parents’ cottage. Aubrey St. Clair was commissioned to design the residence. A sketch of the two-level home appeared in the South Coast News on August 23, 1938. The home was featured in a November 15, 1949 South Coast News home edition. This piece offered a detailed description of the property. There was an expansive yard surrounding the home with beds of camellias and begonias that led to the front door. The entry hall opens onto a large living room and dining room that face the stunning beach at Crescent Bay. As he did in most of his residential projects, St. Clair made extensive use of wood-paneled walls and built-ins. The house was built with three bedrooms and three baths. Earl Waynick added another bedroom and bath in the mid-1950s as his family grew. Life was good again.
Waynick Residence, South Coast News, November 15, 1949.
Art is often rich in symbolism. In Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather trilogy the orange symbolizes death. In Jan van Eyck’s “Arnolfini Wedding Portrait” that same fruit is representative of prosperity, happiness, and fidelity. Both interpretations seem apt for the Waynick family. The cottage built by his parents in the early 1920s, sat at the top of the lot, at street level. In 1946, Earl sold that structure and it was moved to a site on Louise Street in North Laguna. That may have helped heal his old wounds. He built a successful career in the insurance business. Earl served as the chairman of the City’s Planning Commission. He and Nina raised two young children in the house on Cliff Drive until the family moved to Arcadia in the early 1960s. Earl Waynick had a good life and the house that citrus built has been significantly remodeled and expanded upon but still stands on the cliffs overlooking Crescent Bay.
Still from The Godfather, 1972.
