Lido Isle, Newport Beach

Lido Isle is a man-made island located in the harbor of Newport Beach, California. Surrounded by the city, Lido Isle was incorporated as part of Newport Beach in 1906. At that time it was part sandbar and part mudflat. There are no commercial facilities on the island other than a small snack bar open in the summer, and its only link to the city is a small bridge. The man-made island is solely residential with approximately 1,800 people living on the island.HistoryIn 1904 Henry Huntington became a partner with William Collins in the Newport Beach Company. In exchange for extending the Pacific Electric Railway to Newport Beach, Huntington received 250acre and a 100ft wide right-of-way for the railway. A mudflat was included in addition to the other land given Huntington. This mudflat became known as Electric Island, Pacific Electric Island, and finally Huntington Island.In 1923, Huntington Island was purchased from Pacific Electric by W. K. Parkinson for $45,000. Parkinson, a former conductor on the Pacific Electric, made his fortune from land investments when oil was discovered near Bakersfield. Parkinson spent more than a quarter-million dollars dredging the harbor and using the fill to raise the isle more than ten feet above the high tide line. The Griffith Company was hired to build seawalls, a bridge, piers and roads.The new development was one of the first master planned communities in California and was conceived to resemble a European resort. Parkinson envisioned the space as a resort similar to those in the Mediterranean. After dredging the island was renamed Lido Isle in homage to Lido di Venezia near Venice. As a master-planned development, the community was one of the first in Southern California to be built with underground utilities.