Grossmont, La Mesa, CA

The name Grossmont goes back to 1910, when Ed Fletcher mapped a hillside subdivision east of La Mesa and named the big hill for his partner, William Gross. The opera singer Ernestine Schumann-Heink built a house there, and the writers and composers who followed earned the area its old nickname, the Grossmont Art Colony. Today the city neighborhood that carries the name stretches from the north side of the Village's main blocks east along Interstate 8 toward Grossmont Summit. Homes change as the ground rises. Near the Village the streets hold older houses, and the 1908 McKinney House, a Folk Victorian farmhouse on University Avenue that is now the La Mesa History Center, shows how early the town started here. Farther east and uphill, houses from the 1950s and 1960s sit on larger, sloping lots, and some catch long views to the west. The north side of La Mesa Boulevard is the neighborhood's front porch. Public Square Coffee House roasts direct-trade beans and has been growing into the storefront next door. Casa Gabriela draws brunch crowds to a succulent-filled patio for sweet corn pancakes and café de olla. The San Pasqual Winery tasting room pours its own wines. On Friday afternoons the farmers market closes the boulevard to cars. MacArthur Park on Memorial Drive is the outdoor anchor, with the city's community center, a municipal pool, a fully leased community garden and Porter Hall, the 1930 building that served as the library until 1957. The park's former nine-acre golf course is the focus of a long-range redesign that the city intends to build in phases as funding comes in. A short drive covers the rest. Walmart Neighborhood Market and Peet's sit on Grossmont Boulevard, Grossmont Center and the hospital are just across the freeway, and the Orange Line has a station on La Mesa Boulevard. Interstate 8 cuts across the neighborhood, though, and the roads around the summit carry heavy traffic most of the day. Grossmont manages to hold a century-old village on one end and a freeway summit on the other, and residents use both in the same afternoon.