Costa Mesa, located near the Pacific coast in south central Orange County, has had an interesting history. It was originally part of a land grant called Santiago Del Santa Ana, given by Spain to Jose Antonio Yorba. In 1880, settlers bought part of the land from the Yorba family and established the town of Fairview. In 1889, a monstrous storm demolished the railroad and most of the town, but the undaunted residents rebuilt it.
Most likely to mark their fresh start, the town was renamed Harper, and it thrived as an agricultural center, with crops such as apples, strawberries, and corn. On May 11, 1920 it adopted its current name. Costa Mesa is Spanish for “coastal tableland. In 1933, the major earthquake in nearby Long Beach shattered many of the town’s structures, but the determined citizens rebuilt it once more. On June 29, 1953 it was officially incorporated as a city.
Just as important to Costa Mesa’s history was the Santa Ana Army Air Base, where pilots were trained during World War II. The base closed down after the war but its legacy lived on when it became known as the Orange County Fair Grounds. In 1984, the city added a slogan, “The City of the Arts”, based on the fact that it has a symphony orchestra, the South Coast Repertory Theater, and the Orange County Performing Arts Center. Costa Mesa also hosts the Orange County Fair every year, and entertainment is always showcased there. Now, the Fair Grounds are about to make history again.
It will be like the 1950s all over again in Orange County as Costa Mesa has approved the return of a blast from the past. Yes, get your little kids in their pajamas, pack some sandwiches and soft drinks, and head on out to the drive-in theater.
Four entrepreneurs, including Jeffrey Teller, the man in charge of the Orange County Marketplace which is held every weekend on the Fair Grounds, put their heads together and came up with the idea of bringing outdoor movies back to the area. Teller claims that “We all kind of covet a time when life was more simple. It’s amazing how iconic the drive-in is in American culture. It has generational appeal.”
Perhaps Mr. Teller needs to look at a bit of history. Drive-in theaters were at their peak in the 1950s, when over 4,000 of them graced the country. Since the 1960s drive-ins have been plagued by declining fortunes. The housing boom meant that greedy land barons sold their theater properties for insanely high prices, much more than they would have gotten from a decade of paying customers. Over ninety percent of these outdoor entertainment centers had been closed down by the early 1970s, most of them making way for condos and shopping centers.
Mr. Teller says he recalls fogging up the windows with his lady friend at Orange County’s last drive-in theater, the Hi-way 39 on Beach Boulevard in nearby Westminster. The old 39 opened in 1955, had four screens that could handle a total of 1900 cars, and finally closed down in 1997. That bastion of evil in America, Wal-Mart, bought the property and built a mega store there. Wal-Mart, in fact, bought a lot of land formerly occupied by drive-ins because it was cheaper than most other pieces of real estate they sought.
Teller believes that his project will restore a “sense of nostalgia in the community”. The theater will be known as The Star-Vu Drive-In, and is scheduled to begin operating in May on the Fair Grounds. Jill Lloyd is the official spokesperson for Orange County Drive-In LLC, the company behind the business. She recently said “All four of the people who are doing this are baby boomers, like me, who enjoyed drive-ins growing up”.
Plans for the theater call for it to be open seven nights a week, except for the time the Orange County Fair will be on, which this year will be July 13 to August 5. It will have first-run movies, room for 300 cars, and sound piped in through your car’s FM radio. Snack bar concessions and tickets will be roughly three quarters of standard “brick and mortar” theaters, making admission around seven dollars per person and Raisinets still too expensive. To add to the ambiance, classic cars will be provided with special parking, and the owners are mulling over the idea of having live bands, comedians, and jugglers as part of the entertainment.
Most interesting of all will be the theater screen itself. Slightly smaller than the classic drive-in screen because of the area that will be devoted to the business, it will be sixty-five feet wide and 33 feet tall. The real novelty is that the screen will be inflatable. This is being done so that it can swiftly be taken down when the Fair Grounds need the space. It should also eliminate the threat of graffiti, which is so prevalent in southern California. Costa Mesa, with its proximity to the sea, is often a place of fairly strong winds, so an inflatable screen may make movies hard to watch when the famous Santa Ana winds come around.
Something working in the theater’s favor is that a lot of baby boomers will probably be glad to have a drive-in back in Orange County. At one time there were twenty-four of these within 20 miles of Costa Mesa, and California is one of the states with the most drive-ins still in operation. The climate in southern California is such that the Star-Vu Drive-In will be able to remain open just about all year.
For a more in-depth look at the era of the drive-in movies, you can read my related article on Associated Content titled “Movies, Food, and Sex Education.
