Fairbanks Ranch, CA

Spread along the San Dieguito River valley in coastal North County San Diego, Fairbanks Ranch is an unincorporated community with Rancho Santa Fe on its northern side and the newer San Diego neighborhoods of Pacific Highlands Ranch and Black Mountain Ranch beyond its southern and eastern edges. The Del Mar coast lies west down the valley, and plenty of homes here use a Del Mar or Rancho Santa Fe address on their mail. The name goes back to Douglas Fairbanks, the silent film star best remembered as Zorro, who once owned the land. The summer of 1984 put it on a world stage. The Fairbanks Ranch Country Club opened that June on city-owned land along San Dieguito Road, and in August it hosted the Olympic equestrian endurance event, a site Prince Philip picked in part for its closeness to the racetrack at Del Mar. The original waterfall jumps still sit on the golf course, and the Olympic flag still flies out front. Houseberry maps the community as one neighborhood, but it is really a cluster of separately gated enclaves of custom homes, with the club, a resort, a pair of shopping centers and riverside open space filling the gaps. The Del Mar Polo Fields sit across the river to the north. Rancho Valencia Resort and Spa, on Valencia Circle, is the place people drive in for. Its 49 casitas sit among 45 acres of gardens and olive groves, Veladora serves Mediterranean dinners, and The Pony Room is known for lamb lollipops, carne asada tacos and a long tequila list. For a village outing, the old Rancho Santa Fe center lies just north, where Mille Fleurs has been serving French food for about 40 years and Caffe Positano roasts its own beans. The river valley ties the area together. The regional river trail follows the water from the Del Mar fairgrounds inland toward El Camino Real, then picks up again in the county's Lusardi Creek Preserve to the east. Via de la Valle leads west to Interstate 5, and Carmel Valley's shopping centers handle the big errands. Life here runs entirely by car, and there is no village street to walk to. What makes Fairbanks Ranch unusual is how close an Olympic course, a working farm valley and the beach all sit to each other.