Anne Evans volunteered for various causes for 30 years and raised five children while her husband, William D. Evans, built the landmark Bahia and Catamaran hotels in the 1950s and ’60s on Mission Bay.
But when he suddenly succumbed to a heart attack in 1984, she took the helm of the Evans Hotels group and became one of San Diego’s top business and nonprofit leaders. She died Feb. 12 at her La Jolla home after a brief illness. She was 92.
“The hotel business is really hard. You don’t want to do this,” a string of local San Diego men warned her after her husband’s death at age 61, according to family lore.
With the help of three of her adult children with business degrees, she took the company’s reins herself. Grace Evans Cherashore is now the company’s executive chairwoman, and William L. “Bill” Evans, is a board member.
In 1995, they bought the Torrey Pines Inn next to the Torrey Pines Golf Course and in 2002 replaced it with the 170-room Lodge at Torrey Pines — a Craftsman-style hotel catering to visiting golfers and locals.
“It always bothered Mother that the most famous San Diego (Hotel del Coronado) was not in San Diego,” her son said. “She wanted to put up something that would be a marquee hotel, a landmark hotel for our city.”
But Anne wasn’t known solely for her success as a late-blooming entrepreneur. Her civic contributions were many, having served on or chaired the boards of the Economic Development Corp., San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau (now the San Diego Tourism Authority), the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, the state chamber and tourism boards, and the Automobile Club of Southern California
She also chaired the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco’s Los Angeles Branch in the 1990s and was inducted into four halls of fame.
Anne Ledford Evans was born Aug. 17, 1932, at Mercy Hospital, daughter of an up-and-coming surgeon, Dr. Roy Merl Ledford, and Herma Lucille Ledford. Ledford had answered an ad seeking a surgeon in San Diego in 1927 and moved with his wife and a young son to a city he’d never seen.
Anne graduated from Point Loma High School and Pomona College, majoring in English. She worked briefly in San Francisco as a Macy’s assistant manager for women’s handbags, umbrellas and walking sticks before returning to San Diego in 1954 to marry William D. Evans, whose family owned several residential hotels in San Diego.
In 1953, the Evanses won the city’s first long-term commercial lease on Mission Bay in the early days of the development of the 4,200-acre aquatic park. The 52-room Bahia Resort Hotel opened in 1954 (since enlarged to 312 rooms), followed by the 82-room Catamaran Resort opened on Mission Boulevard in 1959 (now at 312 rooms).
To connect the two hotels, the company converted a 45-foot ferry into a Mississippi-style Bahia Belle sternwheeler in 1961 and later added a second, the William D. Evans.
The family, which ran nearby Belmont Park from 1969 to 1976, sold its famous Giant Dipper roller coaster to a preservation group, which subsequently turned it over to the city.
During those years, Anne raised five children, joined the Junior League and devoted considerable time to charitable causes, including Rady’s Children Hospital and the San Diego Humane Society. She was also politically active in the Republican Party, campaigning for Pete Wilson, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. But the family said she recently cooled on the GOP. She also participated in many musical revues, contributing new lyrics to go with old standards.
Her many friends and admirers lauded Evans’ leadership and passed along some of her quips and pieces of advice: “If you live long enough, you get a lot done,” “No good deed goes unpunished,” “Tourism is the industry of peace” and “I don’t just run a business — I am responsible for 1,200 families.”
Mary Walshok, a retired dean at UC San Diego who met Evans through the Junior League, commented, “(Men) might not have taken her seriously in the beginning, but in the end, they did.”
“She was just the best — smart, got guts and was an amazing contributor,” said Wilson, a former mayor, governor and U.S. senator.
Evans had a reputation for deprecating humor, sometimes at her own expense. She once reacted to seeing herself on a giant screen when she accepted a leadership award: “If I ever thought this would happen, I would have taken better care of my pores.”
When a friend visited her home with two large dogs in tow, said long-time friend Karin Winner, former editor in chief of The San Diego Union-Tribune, one relieved itself on her couch: “Don’t worry —it’ll just blend in with the other calling cards from my four-legged friends.”
Julie Meier Wright recalls Evans’ strategy for luring her to San Diego 30 years ago. Evans, knowing Wright was a fan of Starbucks coffee, mailed her a map with 38 green arrows pointing to every Starbucks coffee house in the county, explaining, “I didn’t want you to think we were a backwater place.” Wright took the top job at the Economic Development Corp. and became another one of Evans’ life-long friends and admirers.
Developer Dene Oliver, another long-time family friend, called her “courageous, bold, outspoken, fearless, very strong — with the intellect to back it up.”
Evans is survived by her five children, 10 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. A celebration of life will be held at 3 p.m., April 12 at the Bahia. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to Rady Children’s Hospital or the Baja Animal Sanctuary in Rosarito, B.C.
Staff writer Lori Weisberg contributed to this story. Showley is a freelance writer and can be reached at rmshowley@yahoo.com
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