Memorial Day – Coronado Island

I love spending the day in Coronado Island, and the experience starts when crossing over the bridge, looking at the sailboats, downtown panorama, and the feeling of anticipation for a fun carefree day. I live in North San Diego so when visitors come from out of town I like taking them to a few places – Coronado Island is one of the top five.

My sister and her family were in town for memorial day and wanted to go to Coronado Island – this being their fifth time there – it never gets old. Usually we rent bikes and ride all around the island but today we decided to go to Leroy’s first, for their delicious deviled eggs and lunch.

With the too full feeling we decided to walk all around the neighborhoods instead of riding bikes this time. We stumbled on a real gem in this walk. Being drawn in by beautiful bougainvilleas lining the front of a old quaint house, we walked over and asked the two gentleman standing out front if we could take a picture. They said sure and were happy to share some history of the house and Coronado. Turns out this house, 1022 Park Place Coronado CA, is 118 years old build in 1894 for Mr. Benjamin Muir who came to San Diego in 1886. In 1887 he married Lizzie Barber, which was the first wedding in Coronado.

This house was the Muir’s beach house so they rented it out when they were not there.. “to a variety of people including a Christian Science Reader, a bartender at the Hotel Del Coronado and a German guy who ran a part time kindergarten here. There’s a good indication that parts of the house were built using unused lumber from the Hotel Del Coronado construction site – the hand rails on the steps going to the second floor, the main building frames and the shingles were all hotel surplus. Commander Don Hubbard, retired US Navy was happy to share some history of his home to us.

For more Coronado history he recommended the Acadia Publications Book, Images of America: CORONADO, which was written by his daughter, and is available at Bay Books on Orange Avenue, just across the street from the home and also at Amazon.com

Here are pictures of other interesting houses and sights in Coronado on Memorial Day.