Old Town Irvine

Seems like a lot of S CA towns have tried to develop an "old town" section. I'm a big fan of old architecture and old stuff in general... much more interesting than new. Perhaps the most famous and successful of the old towns is Old Town San Diego. But Old Town Irvine??  Never heard of it, and seems to me Irvine hasn't been around long enough to even have an old town. I was on my way to a meeting earlier this week, and exiting Sand Canyon Ave. off the 5 Freeway I noticed a cool old building. I didn't have my DSLR with me, by my iPhone always serves as a good backup.

You can actually see this from the freeway, and I've wondered what it was. The old, original-looking corrugated iron siding and roof remind me of an old packing house of some kind. As I got a closer look, it became obvious that people went to great pains to maintain much of the original construction detail.

Even an old wood walkway between two parts of the building has been preserved, although it's way too rickety to actually be used. Pretty cool, eh? Probably would have been much cheaper just to tear it down, but someone made the decision to keep it. [After a quick Google search, I learned that this is the old Irvine Bean and Grain Storage Warehouse (1895) - see bottom of this post.]
The entire front of this old warehouse has a covered front porch, and much of the flooring, walls, and even the light fixtures look original.

On close inspection, this old ceiling fan definitely looks original. I used selective coloring (b&w except for the fan) to make it stand out from the background. Here's the part that really intrigues me... I'm no electrician, but all these old electrical panels sure look original to me. Wow!

I wonder what "Big Gravity" is?? As you can tell, I had a lot of fun with these iPhone photos. So there you have it, Old Town Irvine. Old Building Irvine might be a more appropriate name, but either way a fun place to visit and photograph. Hope your weekend was a good one!!

Linking to:



If you're ever in the neighborhood and want to check it out, here's some additional information.
Old Town Irvine stands today as a testament to the rich agricultural past of what has become one of California's most heavily urban counties. Founded in 1887 as the distribution and storage center of the 125,000-acre Irvine ranch, Old Town Irvine was to develop over the years a bean and grain storage warehouse (1895) and granary (1947) known as the Irvine Bean and Grain Grower's Building, a blacksmith's shop (1916), a hotel (1913), a general store (1911), and an employees' bungalow (1915). All of these structures have been rehabilitated for commercial uses and their exteriors have been painstakingly maintained.
Location:  Sand Canyon Ave and Burt Rd, Irvine
Reference:  http://ceres.ca.gov/geo_area/counties/Orange/landmarks.html