Eastlake guide

Eastlake is part of the exquisite City of Chula Vista. Chula Vista is nestled beside a beautiful bay filled with boats gently swaying in the yacht harbor and surrounded by picturesque mountains rising tall in to the blue sky, the city evokes a sense of community and family spirit reminiscent of small town America. What makes Chula Vista unique, however, is that it offers both the aura and pleasures of a small town with tree-lined streets and family owned businesses and the amenities of a thriving metropolis.

The Nature Center, ARCO/US. Olympic Training Center, and the Coors Amphitheater have put Chula Vista toward the top of the list as a "must" family getaway. Whether you choose to live in Chula Vista or are looking for an exciting vacation spot, you are sure to enjoy all that Chula Vista has to offer.

With top schools, excellent health care facilities, libraries overflowing with information, spacious parks to play in, community programs for all ages and top-notch facilities for South Bay's seniors, Chula Vista offers the residents of its community the best of everything.

Chula Vista is progressive and presents a myriad of educational opportunities. Located within the city limits are excellent elementary, junior and senior high schools, as well as Southwestern College, National University and the University of Phoenix.

The benefits of a diverse work force, a well-educated and progressive population, and an ideal location for work and play are attractive to businesses.

View houses for sale in Eastlake.

Easy access to two major north-south freeways and a third soon to be constructed north-south highway makes Eastlake a convenient place to work, visit and live. Interstates 5 and 805 bring thousands of visitors and tourists to the city each day.

View websites in Eastlake of things and places to shop.

Heritage Elementary School, located in the heart of the village of Heritage, opened its doors to students in July 2001. This year-round school is a prototype for future schools in the Chula Vista Elementary School District and is designed to accommodate 750 children in K-6.

McMillin Elementary, another brand new facility and a replicate of Heritage Elementary, opened in September 2001 and is the home school for children in K-6 living in our village of Countryside.

For older children, the new Rancho Del Rey Middle School and Eastlake High School are also nearby. Rancho Del Rey Middle School is a year-round middle school that offers a highly academic curriculum with an emphasis on interdisciplinary studies.

Eastlake High School, home of the Titans, graduated its first class in 1995. This high school provides block scheduling with an emphasis on pre-engineering, technology, fine arts and media arts. It has an on-site public library and the Ruth Chapman Performing Arts Theatre for music and drama productions.

The Chula Vista Elementary School District (619-425-9600) and the Sweetwater Union High School District (619-691-5500) serves both elementary, middle school and high school students. Each school district determines all capacity and enrollment issues.

The San Diego Community College District serves almost 100,000 students each semester through three two-year colleges and six continuing education centers. The three colleges - San Diego City, Mesa and Miramar - offer associate degrees and certificates in occupational programs that prepare students for entry-level jobs, and arts and sciences programs that transfer to four-year colleges and universities. To learn more about the colleges, you may want to visit the district's student-oriented website. The continuing education centers offer adults the opportunity to renew their learning experiences through noncredit vocational, basic skills, life skills and enrichment classes at neighborhood locations throughout the city. More information about noncredit continuing education begins here.

Eastlake  has the ultimate weather favored more than any other climate in the world.  The sun shines most of the year, although we experience June Gloom annually.  The summer months are mild, and August is usually the hottest month of the year.  Eastlake  experiences an average of 10 inches of rainfall annually.

Eastlake started with a vision of California country life as it was meant to be lived. Safe. Serene.

It was a land of Spanish dons and California caballeros. It was a time when the vast acreage of San Diego County was an open range dotted with roaming cattle. This was the setting of Rancho Janal, a sprawling, 4,436-acre ranch, situated a few miles east of Chula Vista. Janal is an Indian word for "spongy ground" - likely named because of underground streams that crisscrossed the land. Today, this area is the site of the 3,200-acre master-planned community of Eastlake.

After the Mexican-American War of 1846, California became a United States territory, which caused Chula Vista-area ranch owners trouble in proving their land grants handed to them by Mexican governors. Land commission hearings continued for years. It wasn't until 1872 that Don Jose Guadalupe Estudillo received a U.S. Patent (property title) to the Janal grant, the same year his aunt, Dona Magdalena, acquired a patent to adjacent Rancho Otay, now known as Otay Mesa.

Meanwhile, a stage route was laid out in 1869 from San Diego to Yuma, Ariz., which ran through both the Janal and Otay ranches. San Diego County Surveyor James Pascoe created the route, the first to pass through only United States land. It was 25 miles shorter than the old wagon trail through Warner's Pass (which was 55 miles long).

Rancho Janal became the site for both the upper and lower Otay Dams and Reservoir, built for the Southern California Water Company in 1900 and 1901. The dams were built by E.S. Babcock, who also built the Hotel del Coronado in 1888. Henry G. Fenton, a subcontractor of Babcock, bought Janal in 1926 and farmed its 3,000 acres, growing lima beans and barley.

"During the Great Depression, when dad was growing lima beans on the ranch, he would turn the fields over to the needy, once the harvest had been completed," Fenton's daughter, Emily remembers. "There still were thousands of beans lying on the ground, and people would flock to the ranch by the hundreds to scoop them up into sacks to take home."

When he died in 1951, Fenton left the ranch to Emily, who then married Navy Rear Admiral Louis H. Hunte. Emily later married Dean Black. She attended the groundbreaking ceremonies for Eastlake with her son, Henry Hunte, now president of Western Salt Company, the company founded by Fenton. "Western Salt has had a long-time desire to see the property developed into a quality planned community - one that my grandfather would have been proud of. The Eastlake Company is accomplishing that goal," Hunte said. The Eastlake Company is now sole owner of the land.

Eastlake is a part of the community of Chula Vista.