Couple find their exclusive home lacks ZIP
UNION-TRIBUNE
September 5, 2005
If only everyone studied this space with religious regularity.
If that brief penance had been performed five years ago, a couple now living in the Twilight Zone of Rancho Santa Fe might have avoided a half-million in presumed losses – and a lawsuit.
In early 2000, I – and anyone else who drove on Del Dios Highway – was struck nearly dumb by the explosion of growth in the Santa Fe Valley west of Lake Hodges.
To my bugged eye, the most stylish addition to the far reaches of Rancho Santa Fe was The Crosby, a golf-course community with crooning street names like "Going My Way," "Old Man River Road" and "White Christmas."
As a sweater-clad symbol of town-and-country leisure, Bing Crosby is the bling. Still, one aspect of The Crosby's marketing program appeared slightly out of bounds.
Brochures stressed that The Crosby was "in Rancho Santa Fe."
Now, I knew – and wrote – that that wasn't the whole truth.
A tiny beachhead of The Crosby's 722-acre footprint is in the imperial 92067 ZIP code, the stickler's outer boundary for Rancho Santa Fe.
The Crosby's residential lots, which were just going on the market in April 2000, were located in Rancho Bernardo's ZIP code.
Three concentric circles define Rancho Santa Fe, the most prestigious address in San Diego County, if not the United States.
First, and most exclusive, is what's called The Covenant, the Ranch's ancestral footprint. If you reside in this divine circle, you can join the Rancho Santa Fe Country Club. You live in "The Ranch."
Second, there is a larger circle, the 92067 ZIP code, which includes surrounding arrivistes such as Fairbanks Ranch.
Beyond the 92067 border, outlined in the Thomas Guide, Rancho Santa Fe becomes a wishful state of mind, affluence by association. Similarly, many businesses and housing developments try to cash in on La Jolla's cachet-laden name even though they are outside the 92037 ZIP code.
In 2000, I questioned The Crosby's marketing director about the potential problem of being more out than in. She expressed confidence that Crosby homeowners would be able to claim the 92067 ZIP code on their Crane or other fine stationery.
The manager of the Rancho Santa Fe Association had his doubts that the Postal Service would confer the divine ZIP code upon Crosby's residents.
The point is, long before April 2001, when Eilis and Neil McKay started looking at a "custom" lot in The Crosby, the ZIP issue had been aired.
If they only had been reading April 26, 2000, the McKays would have known the lay of the bulldozed land.
Mind you, the McKays – Eilis and Neil – are no babes in the woods. They have lived in Rancho Santa Fe for many years. Intelligent, cosmopolitan. Eilis is a local real estate agent. As buyers go, the McKays would be expected to be among the most sophisticated.
Nonetheless, in their lawsuit filed last year against Starwood-Santa Fe Valley Partners, the McKays allege they were duped repeatedly into believing that their new home would be "in Rancho Santa Fe," a statement they took to be literally, not figuratively, true.
To their horror, they found out after their home was well under way that their house address actually was in the 92127 ZIP code.
What the McKays call blatant fraud, others call astute marketing.
The Crosby developers tried in the late 1990s to have the ZIP code boundary widened to include all their property, according to the McKays' attorney. Failing that, The Crosby had to hang its tam-o'-shanter on the fact that its offices, located on the north side of the San Dieguito River, are in 92067. If the community's mail was delivered there and then distributed to homes, they calculated, then the Rancho Santa Fe ZIP would belong to the residents.
Bada bing!
The McKays aren't buying the postal finesse.
They argue in their complaint that their lot is worth $100,000 less because it is lumped in with Rancho Bernardo. Their house, they say is worth $500,000 less because it is outside 92067.
By January 2003, The Crosby's ZIP gambit was turning into a reality. In the Rancho Santa Fe Review, Al Frowiss, a longtime Ranch resident, railed to no avail against the "mugging and hijacking of Rancho Santa Fe's name and prestige."
More than two years later, The Crosby still markets itself as "The Crosby in Rancho Santa Fe."
The Crosby can argue that perception in the mind is what matters. If buyers believe The Crosby homes are in Rancho Santa Fe, as proven by letterhead, the value stays up.
The McKays can argue that reality on the ground is what matters. If buyers believe their homes are outside Rancho Santa Fe, as proven by the Thomas Guide, the value goes down.
Mediation in this lawsuit failed. Neither side appears prepared to give an inch. A trial is scheduled to begin next month.
ZIPpity-doo-dah! ZIPpity day!
signonsandiego.com
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Logan Jenkins can be reached at (760) 737-7555 or by e-mail at logan.jenkins@uniontrib.com.
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