San Clemente, California

San Clemente was built on a dream and a sales pitch. Ole Hanson, a former mayor of Seattle who had made his reputation suppressing the Seattle General Strike of nineteen nineteen, purchased two thousand acres of coastal land here in nineteen twenty-five and set about building what he called a Spanish village by the sea. He designed the town himself, requiring all buildings to be white-walled with red tile roofs, a Spanish Colonial aesthetic promoted through deed restrictions and design review.

Hanson sold lots as a lifestyle, not just real estate, and the city incorporated in nineteen twenty-eight. Its second chapter came in nineteen sixty-nine when President Richard Nixon purchased La Casa Pacifica, a nearby oceanfront estate that became his Western White House throughout the Watergate years. San Clemente suddenly found itself a backdrop for the last act of a presidency.