How Southern California Became Home to Bond Kings

The drive into Newport Beach can feel like getting lost inside an endless summer of money—especially along the Pacific Coast Highway, winding past billion-dollar hills that plunge to white sand beaches and the sparkling blue ocean.

It’s easy to forget this was once the California of John Wayne, who moved here in the 1960s (when he could still afford it, as he later joked). Back then oranges actually grew in Orange County. These days it sometimes seems it’s money that grows on trees. That spread next to the Duke’s old place? Nicolas Cage bought it and then sold it in 2008 for $35 million.