Ralphs descendant recalls family vacations at future 4S Ranch

By Elizabeth Marie Himchak

Before 4S Ranch became a community, it was cattle land the Ralphs family enjoyed for weekend getaways, said a family member.

Linda Ralphs Kaeser recalled on Nov. 20 how her family would drive from Los Angeles to go horseback riding, bird hunting and enjoy the peace and tranquility of their 3,600-acre property that her grandfather purchased in 1938. “We never permitted deer hunting ... just birds to eat,” she said.

Kaeser shared her memories and explained how the community of 4S Ranch came into existence plus her family’s five-generation history in California and its start in the grocery business while speaking at the Rancho Bernardo Historical Society Museum as part of its speaker series.

One thing she could not explain was the significance of the “4S,” a name given to the parcel prior to her family buying it. Kaeser said she has tried to find out, but the answer seems lost to history.

“It was very much small potatoes,” Kaeser said when comparing their ranch to the nearby 30,000- to 40,000-acre ranches. But the number of cattle that could be grazed, not size, determined economic value. “You couldn’t plant crops and there was no water to speak of. Our ranch house is still completely off the grid.”

Little has been done to modernize the four-bedroom, one-story U-shaped hacienda built of poured-in-place concrete during the 1920s. “It was very unusual for that day,” she said, adding all supplies had to be brought by horse and wagon.

The house still has no utilities. The family accesses well water, gets electricity via generator, and uses a propane stove and refrigerator. The house can only be seen when looking west from Interstate 15 while going over Lake Hodges, she said. It is nestled in a dozen eucalyptus trees. “It’s a great spot to hang out, with wonderful views and you get the ocean breezes. The sound of the wind in the trees is the most peaceful thing you’ll ever hear.”

Years ago the family sold the grocery chain and the land passed to her, three siblings and three cousins. Due to taxes, they decided by the early 1980s to develop the southern section in a way that preserved its openness and was family-friendly.

Kaeser said the latter was likely influenced by her experiences as a single, working mother. She wanted the community to be walkable and something of which her future grandchildren 50 years later would be proud.

“When you stay put for a long time, you can watch growth as it happens,” she said. “We watched Orange, Los Angeles and San Diego counties grow and tracked it over time.”

The Ralphs family kept 1,200 acres and did not sell the rest to developers, but made it a 50/50 partnership so the family could make the decisions. “By staying involved and doing it ourselves, we’d only have ourselves to blame,” Kaeser said. “We tried to not be bad developers.”

The first area developed was the 159-acre business park, which Kaeser — a Fairbanks Ranch resident and 4S Ranch homeowner — still manages. During the late 1980s and 1990s they put in a lot of infrastructure not needed until the mid-2000s when most homes were built.

“It was not a financial success (then), but a great design success,” Kaeser said, describing how the industrial area got its triangular shape by extending Camino del Norte and Rancho Bernardo Road. To ease traffic, higher density housing was put near the “spine roads” and larger parcels placed on the perimeter.

4S Ranch became the county’s first master-planned community outside the City of San Diego, which surrounds the unincorporated county community on all but one side.

“That was a big decision for us, to develop in the city or the county,” she said. The latter meant not having access to city infrastructure, but preferred due to controversial development going on in the La Jolla Valley, present-day Black Mountain Ranch.

“We paid $5 million to annex ourselves to Olivenhain Metropolitan Water District where we had no water rights,” she said. “We annexed to Rancho Santa Fe Fire Protection District. It was very expensive, but a highly rated fire agency.”

They had the right to build 4,615 homes, but kept it around 4,200 in order to have more open space. Kaeser said one of her proudest accomplishments was building the Boys & Girls Club next door to Stone Ranch Elementary. As part of their deal with the county, they built and furnished the club, library, sheriff’s station and community park.