The Irvine family of

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural List of regions of California, region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Its densely populated coastal reg ...

is a prominent Californian family of real estate developers. Through the

Irvine Company The Irvine Company LLC is an American private company focused on real estate development. It is headquartered in Newport Beach, California, with a large portion of its operations centered in and around Irvine, California, a planned city of more ...

, the family played an important role in the development of Orange County. The city of Irvine and the

University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Irvine, California, United States. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, U ...

, take their name from the family.

James Irvine I

James Irvine (1827–1886) was born in

County Down County Down () is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. It covers an area of and has a population of 552,261. It borders County Antrim to the ...

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the union of the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland into one sovereign state, established by the Acts of Union 1800, Acts of Union in 1801. It continued in this form until ...

on December 27, 1827, the second to the youngest of nine children. When Ireland's potato crop failed in 1845, James Irvine and his younger brother William were among those who left for the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. The family name is Scottish, meaning that James would have been an Ulster Scot, or Scots-Irish. Irvine worked for two years in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. In 1848 Irvine went to join the

California Gold Rush The California gold rush (1848–1855) began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California from the rest of the U ...

as a merchant and miner. In 1854, he purchased an interest in a

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

commission house on Front Street, operated by a relative, John Lyons. The business was renamed "Irvine & Co., wholesale produce and grocery merchants". He began investing his profits in income-producing San Francisco real estate and soon became a wealthy man. Irvine also became a silent partner in the sheep-raising venture Flint, Bixby & Company of brothers Thomas and Benjamin Flint, and their cousin

Llewellyn Bixby Llywelyn, Llewelyn or Llewellyn is a name of Welsh language origins. See Llywelyn (name) for the name's etymology, history and other details. As a surname Arts * Carmen Llywelyn, American actress and photographer * Chris Llewellyn (poet), America ...

. The purchase of the Rancho San Joaquin in 1864 and the

Rancho Lomas de Santiago Rancho Lomas de Santiago was a Mexican land grant given by Mexican governor Pío Pico to Teodosio Yorba in 1846. The name means "Hills of St. James". The rancho included parts of present-day Irvine and Tustin in what is now eastern Orange Cou ...

in 1866 marked the beginning of their operations in Southern California. In 1867, Irvine married Henrietta Maria (Nettie) Rice, the daughter of prominent

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–United States border, Canada–U.S. maritime border ...

, educator, writer, poet, and Ohio State Senator Harvey Rice, who was a direct descendant of early

Massachusetts Bay Colony The Massachusetts Bay Colony (1628–1691), more formally the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, was an English settlement on the east coast of North America around Massachusetts Bay, one of the several colonies later reorganized as the Province of M ...

settler Edmund Rice. Nettie died in 1874, and Irvine married Margaret Byrne in 1880. He died of

Bright's disease Bright's disease is a historical classification of kidney diseases that are described in modern medicine as acute or chronic nephritis. It was characterized by swelling and the presence of albumin in the urine. It was frequently accompanied ...

on March 15, 1886, and is buried in

Colma, California Colma (Ohlone for "Springs") is a small incorporated List of municipalities in California, town in San Mateo County, California, United States, on the San Francisco Peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area. The population was 1,507 at the 2020 U ...

James Irvine II

James Harvey Irvine, Sr. (1867–1947), son of James Irvine I and Henrietta Maria (Nettie) Rice, was born October 16, 1867, in San Francisco. Herringshaw, Thomas William
''American Elite and Sociologist Bluebook'', p. 293.
American Blue Book Publishers, 1922. He was the grandson of Harvey Rice. James II's mother died when he was seven years old, and his father died when he was about eighteen. Between the time of James Irvine I's death in 1886 and James Irvine II's inheritance of the Southern California real estate holdings upon his twenty-fifth birthday in 1892, the properties were supervised by James Irvine I's brother, George Irvine. James II bought out Flint and the other partners, and formed the

. He married Frances Anita Plum in 1892, and they had three children, James Harvey "Jase" Irvine Jr. (1894–1935), Katharine Helena Irvine (1894–1920) and Myford Plum Irvine (1898–1959). In 1931, James II married Mrs. Kathryn Brown White, who died in 1950. James II lived in San Francisco until the

1906 San Francisco earthquake At 05:12 AM Pacific Time Zone, Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major earthquake with an estimated Moment magnitude scale, moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli inte ...

, when he relocated to the Irvine Ranch. He was a member of the

Bohemian Club The Bohemian Club is a private club with two locations: a city clubhouse in the Nob Hill district of San Francisco, California, and the Bohemian Grove, a retreat north of the city in Sonoma County. Founded in 1872 from a regular meeting of jour ...

, and kept a residence in San Francisco, at 2421 Pierce Street. He established the James Irvine Foundation in 1937, an entity dedicated to the "general well-being of the citizens and residents of the state of California." James II owned nearly a third of the land in present-day Orange County. The city of Irvine (formerly Myford) is named after him. He died of a

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when Ischemia, blood flow decreases or stops in one of the coronary arteries of the heart, causing infarction (tissue death) to the heart muscle. The most common symptom ...

on August 24, 1947 while on a fishing trip in Montana at the Flying D Ranch with Irvine Company manager William Bradford Hellis and real estate broker Walter S. Tubach.

James Irvine III

James Harvey Irvine, Jr. (1894–1935) was groomed since a young man to take over the Ranch. He married Madeline Agassiz in 1914, but they were divorced in 1928. He married Athalie Richardson (1903–1993) in 1929, and they had one daughter, Athalie Anita "Joan" Irvine (1933–2019 ). When James Irvine III died of

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...

in 1935, James II set up The James Irvine Foundation, a charitable organization to hold controlling stock in the Irvine Company. When James II died in 1947, Myford Plum Irvine, James II's only surviving child, took over the presidency of the Irvine Company.

Morton Irvine Smith

Morton Irvine Smith (born 1963), the son of Athalie Anita "Joan" Irvine, achieved notoriety when he was the subject of a publicized family feud. Smith attended the

University of Rhode Island The University of Rhode Island (URI) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Kingston, Rhode Island, United States. It is the flagship public research as well as the land-grant university of Rhode Island. The univer ...

where he met his wife to be, Marianne Campbell, who was a nursing student. Smith participated in "the resurgence of right-wing extremism in Orange County" and served on the board of the American Phoenix Project, whose founder was linked to the deadly Jan. 6 United States Capitol attack. Smith's wife, Marianne Campbell Smith, was convicted of trespassing on 22 October 2021 after her arrest on 15 August 2020 for taking part in an anti-masking protest during the

Covid-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In January 2020, the disease spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic. The symptoms of COVID‑19 can vary but often include fever ...

pandemic.

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