Starting as humble farmland, the Segerstrom family slowly converted their parcels into real estate holdings in sleepy 1950s Orange County, eventually opening the South Coast Plaza in 1967. Fifty years later, South Coast Plaza has become the largest mall on the West Coast and the mecca of upscale luxury retailing. Lima beans once grew where one of America's highest-performing Tiffany and Co. now sits. Attracting over 20 million people annually who collectively spend over $2 billion, South Coast Plaza is the most successful planned retail center in the United States. While no one imagined the farmland would one day become such an international commercial hub, the family always had plans for it to become the county's cultural center, inviting artists like Isamu Noguchi and Richard Serra alongside notable architects Victor Gruen and Cesar Pelli to inform and create. The result is Segerstrom Hall, the artistic home to the Pacific Symphony, the Philharmonic Society of Orange County and the Pacific Chorale. Celebrating the momentous occasion of the fiftieth anniversary, the visionary founders of the South Coast Plaza take a retrospective moment on the phases of growth that have made this incredible landmark the commercial and cultural monolith it is today. AUTHOR: Kedric Francis is the executive editor of Coast Magazine and a cofounding editor of Orange County Register magazine, which won the 2014 Maggie Award for Best New Publication. Before becoming editorial director of the Southern California News Group, Francis was the founding editor of Riviera and Modern Luxury magazines. over 100 illustrations
