From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mission Hills is a neighborhood of San Diego, California. It is located on hills just south of the San Diego River valley and north of downtown San Diego, overlooking Old Town and San Diego Bay. It was subdivided on January 20, 1908 as a smaller portion of what is now referred to as Mission Hills.

The area is primarily residential, with some small shops and restaurants. The area was developed in the early 20th century and most of the houses are still from that era, carefully preserved and restored. Homes were also often designed by San Diego’s premier architects such as William E. Hebbard, William Templeton Johnson,Richard Requa, Joel E. Brown only namng a few.Master Builders such as Pacific Building Co, Morris Irvin and Martin V. Melhorn contributed by building the vernacular architecture.

Modern homes were built along canyon rims as infill during the 1950's and 1960's by modern masters such as Lloyd Ruocco, John Lloyd Wright and Sim Bruce Richards again only naming a few. Ironically, San Diego's most famous architect Irving Gill never built in Mission Hills as by the time this area was being built he was already working in Torrence, CA.

The famous horticulturalist Kate O. Sessions helped to influence development in Mission Hills. She founded the Mission Hills Nursery, which is still an active business (since 1910).

Several public, private, and religious schools are located in Mission Hills. The best known is the “lower school” campus of the private Francis Parker School, founded in 1912. This school was based on Progressive ideals by William Templeton Johnson and his wife. Johnson built the original school building and his wife ran the school.