The history of the neighborhood plays a vital part in the identity of its residents. If you have lived in the neighborhood for many years, the neighborhood history is a heartfelt reminder of days gone by.

San Diego, CA – October 16, 2003 – Construction began on Torrey Highlands Village Center, a 90,000 square foot retail center designed by SGPA Architecture And Planning for McMillin Commercial, a Corky McMillin Company. Located at Camino del Sur and state Highway 56, the neighborhood center is part of the City of San Diego’s North City Future Urbanizing Area Plan, which includes new retail, residential apartments and parks for the surrounding community.

“Torrey Highlands is destined to be a successful neighborhood center, providing not only shopping convenience for the community, but also serving as a focal point for community activities and social interaction for the neighborhood residents,” says Ron Mourey, Principal with SGPA.

SGPA designed the pedestrian-friendly center to integrate the shopping experience into the residential community. Project highlights include a main plaza enhanced with built in seating areas along with mature palm trees, all designed with the upscale community in mind. The entire Torrey Highlands community was designed to promote a lively mixture of uses, including shopping, dining and living, all in one location.

The Story of Torrey Glenn - Behind the Scene

Written by Scot Sandstrom 8/23/04 In October of 1996, my wife and I and our family were living in Rancho Penasquitos. I had just started working for a small, but growing privately held homebuilder/developer named Western Pacific Housing. As the Director of Development, one of my duties was to help the Division President acquire land for new housing developments. I was vaguely aware of the history of the vast amount of vacant land west of Rancho Penasquitos, but I thought it was the right time for me to begin my search in earnest. It just so happens that the very next month there was a new proposition on the November ballot to approve 2,600 new homes on 1,100 acres known as “Future Urbanizing Sub Area IV: Torrey Highlands” for the vacant land adjacent to Ranch Penasquitos. My research of the City records revealed that the largest land holder and major backer of the proposition was a gentleman named Mr. D. Goodell. After causally mentioning the results of my inquiry with my father, Mr. Goodell turned out to be a very good friend with my one of parents’ friends and I was able to track down his phone number very quickly. That very next day, I nervously picked up the phone and called Mr. Goodell. As luck would have it, he picked up the phone on the second ring. I introduced myself and my company and jumped right into the business of buying all his land. Mr. Goodell listened to my pitch and was very cordial, but he said he was not prepared to discuss anything about selling his land until after the election. The last thing Mr. Goodell needed was some noisy developer poking around at the last second disrupting his carefully planned, but very fragile, campaign to get the Proposition approved at the ballot box. While this initial contact with Mr. Goodell didn’t produce any immediate results, it would later develop into a strong relationship that would lead to the several purchases of land that later became Torrey Santa Fe (Montellano and Cabrerra), the Torrey Highland Village Center (the Albertson Shopping Center) and over a hundred acres of wetlands and uplands open space within McGonigle Canyon for habitat mitigation of the new developments listed above. I was accustom to being put off by land owners, so I decided to continue my pursuit of this vast “Torrey Highlands Sub Area IV” via my mountain bike. I had ordered up a complete property profile of the entire Torrey Highlands Sub Area from my favorite title officer, Roy Provence, of First American Title Co. I cut and taped together the various parcels maps from Roy’s reports and pinned them up on one of walls in my office dubbing it the “Torrey Highlands Battle Plan”. While Mr. Goodell owned or controlled a large part of Torrey Highlands, he didn’t own it all. A short time later, I was introduced by a friend to a Torrey Highlands land owner and real estate broker, Frank Anderson of Anderson Realty. Frank was someone who seemed willing to sell his property and said he knew of other land owners in the area that might be willing to sell their property as well. The weekend before my first formal meeting with Frank, I took another mountain bike ride to get acquainted with a site Frank had said might be available for sale. Fate was on my side that day as I rode up to a large ranch style gate not that far from the west side of Penasquitos. Trying to appear brave as I road past the “No Trespassing” signs, a gentleman in his white pickup truck drove up on the other side of the gate. As he got out of his truck to unlock the gate, I introduced myself. The gentleman said his name was “David” and that he was the owner of the property. He had a quiet manner and a deep weathered tan from years under the sun. His hands showed that a hard day’s work was no problem with him. We struck up a short conversation and I mentioned I was meeting with Frank Anderson about pursuing buying land in the area for possible development. Figuring this gentleman was not much for small talk, I got on my bike and left for home back in PQ. My meeting with Frank Anderson was very fruitful and I soon made an acceptable offer to purchase the 40 acres of property that David owned. Frank Anderson was a true joy to work with and always very generous with his knowledge of the Torrey Highlands Sub Area. Frank passed away last year away after a tough battle with cancer and will be missed. His son Gary Anderson carries on the Anderson Realty business as the owner/developer of Torrey Del Mar neighborhood shopping center off Carmel Valley Road where Extreme Pizza and the Mobile station are located. As a part of the due diligence process of buying this new 40 acre property, I needed to visit the site to oversee the performance of various consultants we hired to test the soil and design a land plan. During my very first visit, the gentleman from the white pick up truck named David was waiting for me at the gate at our appointed meeting time. As I pulled through the gate in my car, I could tell that he was anxious to meet me. He invited me to drive up to house as he had some information he wanted to show me. His house was a simple one story masonry design with a heavy timber A-frame roof located on the northern most hill of the property. He had planted several fruit trees around the house for shade. To say he was a bit of a hermit was an understatement. The house had the appearance of a long time bachelor, but he was a quietly proud man and I just seemed to connect with him. He told me that he had built the house himself and liked the masonry walls because they “kept the heat out and the cool in.” David explained that he was a retired CDF Fire Chief and bought the 40 acre property back in the 1972 to create a horse ranch for people to board their horses. He cleared and graded flat a portion of the property within the valley for horse stables. Unfortunately, between running afoul with the City (illegal grading activities) and lack of access to the site (the closest paved road in the late 70’s was Black Mountain Road over 2 miles to the east and the dirt road wasn’t to great for horse trailers), his business was not able to stay in the black and he had to eventually shut it down. He was truly fascinated by my ideas for his land and wanted to hear how I planned to develop the site. After a better part of an hour, I think I had gained his trust enough for him to pull out a large manila folder. Before he showed me the contents of the envelope, he proceeded to tell me a story that I still find fascinating. He explained that sometime in the late-70’s two very large, black four door Lincoln Continentals with tinted windows approached his gate in the middle of a hot summer day. Back then, since he lived out in the middle of no where, he didn’t often lock the gate so the Lincolns proceeded up the driveway right to the very front of his house. He describes the scene as if it was straight out of a Hollywood movie. The two cars unloaded a gang of gentlemen in dark suits with slicked back hair and dark sunglasses. David said he became more than a bit curious (and I think a tad bit afraid) as the lead gentleman introduced himself as Morris Shenker, an attorney representing a client looking to buy his land. David quickly stated that the land is not for sale. As he puts it, an uncomfortable quiet set in before the group decided to retreat back to the cars to huddle and whisper for several minutes. The group eventually broke up and approached him again with a new offer. Would he be willing to grant an easement for sewer and water lines as his client owned land on both sides and needed the easement for the development of their properties? The offer seemed reasonable enough, so David agreed and some days later the documents arrived for him to execute. Upon completion of his story, he then pulls out of the envelope a Readers Digest from the early-80’s, somewhat tattered and yellowed, that had the cover page dedicated to none other than a gentleman named Morris Shenker, the reputed “Mob Attorney” for the likes of such notorious mobsters as Jimmy Hoffa. The Reader’s Digest story detailed how Morris Shenker, a Russian immigrant of humble beginnings, became a complex and brilliant attorney that later became the owner of the Dunes and Aladdin Casinos. As stated in 1997 article by the St Louis Post-Dispatch, “Shenker, a lawyer who once represented Jimmy Hoffa, was a mover and shaker and a financial genius of the caliber of Meyer Lansky. It was Shenker who tapped the Teamster Union’s Central States Pension Fund to finance much of the mob’s penetration of Las Vegas casinos and other ventures. Shenker’s influence extended far beyond the underworld and he was able to get two of his own federal indictments killed.” One of those “other ventures” was using a “potful of teamster’s money to become a partner with Irvin J. Kahn in the sprawling Peñasquitos development, which was backed by loans from the mob-infested Teamsters' pension fund” (City Lights, 12/11/97). As history would have it, much of the land within the northern portion of Torrey Highlands and a large potion of Black Mountain Ranch (Aka: Sub Area I of which “Santaluz” is a part of) was once owned by the St. Louis Mob represented by Morris Shenker using Teamsters Union money to fund a very ambition real estate development. For many reasons, the project never went forward and was later sold off for pennies on the dollar. Mr. Shenker died in 1989 at age of 82 of natural causes. At that time, Mr. Shenker was bankrupt, but not penniless, owing the IRS over $55 million. The Post-Dispatch's John McGuire wrote of him: 'Shenker's life was like something out of a Mario Puzo novel, or a classic from his native Russia. ... His immigrant origin, his courtroom exploits his power in the Democratic Party, his deftness in multimillion-dollar business deals and his ability to survive countless investigations into complex financial affairs imbued Shenker with a reputation as a legend.' I was more than astonished to learn that the land surrounding the 40 acres I had just purchased (that later became 66 single family lots better known as “Torrey Glenn”) had a very colorful history. At the conclusion of my meeting with David, he explained to me that he was going to take the money from the land sale to buy a ranch of several hundred acres in Montana to raise horses. He needed to get back to being in the middle of no where because progress was just moving in on him in San Diego. Yet, he was still very proud of the 40 acres of land he owned for over twenty years that he had once refused to sell to the Mob. He very sheepishly asked me for one favor that day. David looked me straight in the eyes and asked if there was any way I could name a street with his name on it. I didn’t hesitate and instantly agreed to his request and we shook hands on it. I made good on that promise and at the close of escrow some twelve months later, I presented him an authentic City of San Diego street sign I had made up for the occasion as a gift for his trust in me. I thought I saw a tear or two form as this man, David Watson, looked at the sign and realized that “Watson Ranch Road” would live on. He moved to Montana in March of 1997 and that was the last time I heard from him, but I know that somewhere in Montana, a road sign hangs up with the name of the main street of Torrey Glenn which in 2002 became the new home for me and my family.