WELCOME TO THE 'AGRIHOOD'

California ranch family creates an ag-centered community in response to increased urbanization.

- Courtney Leeper Girgis

Lissa Freese remembers the days when seeing a car driving onto Rancho Mission Viejo would have been rare. Today, it's just part of business on the 23,000-acre operation in Orange County, California.

Rancho Mission Viejo is one of the last working ranches and the largest lemon producer in the county. It's also an "agrihood."

The O'Neill/Moiso/Avery family, which has owned and operated the land since the 1880s, has embraced encroaching urbanization by becoming developers themselves in a way that extends their agricultural heritage to the public.

Family and Neighbors

Freese moved to the ranch as a young girl in 1967, when her father, Gilbert Aguirre, was offered a job by the ranch founder's grandson, Richard J. O'Neill, who managed the land with his sister Alice O'Neill (Moiso) Avery and her son Tony Moiso. At his death in 2009, O'Neill passed management on to Moiso.

Aguirre, now 86, is Moiso's longest-tenured employee. He continues to oversee the ranch's agricultural operations - primarily beef cattle, citrus, and avocados. Freese, who returned to the ranch after college, now takes care of day-to-day operations. Her son, Brent Freese, manages the cow-calf operations.

In some ways, things haven't changed. The working pens on the ranch are ones Aguirre built decades ago, and there have always been early mornings and cattle to tend. In other ways, the ranch has seen significant transformation, and not just with the incorporation of artificial insemination and electronic record keeping.

While Freese was growing up, the only people who lived on the ranch were the O'Neill/Moiso/Avery family and the families of their employees. Freese remembers trips to town as a big deal, with neighbors picking up food and supplies for each other.