Redonda Mesa
Redonda Mesa is a mesa type formation located in the southern Santa Ana Mountains, near the Pacific Ocean in Southern California. It is located in an unincorporated area of southwestern Riverside County. The highest point of Redonda Mesa is in elevation. Geography. Redonda Mesa lies near the Riverside-San Diego County Line, several miles northeast of Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton and west of Temecula. The views from atop the mesa on clear days can include: This mesa's natural areas are vegetated with flora of the Coastal sage scrub plant community, an increasingly endangered one in Southern  California. History. In the late 1960s the top of Redonda Mesa (along with several parcels in the valley below) was purchased from the Rancho California Land Company by Edward E. Sharp of Newport Beach, California, a leading real estate broker in the region. During the 1970s, prior to the development of fiber optic transmission capabilities, the mesa's unrestricted views from San Diego County to Orange County made it the ideal location for a microwave relay station which was the backbone of telephone communications in the era. AT&T purchased on the top of Redonda Mesa from the Sharp Family Trust  and in about 1981. The company built a high tower with numerous white "cones" pointed toward transmission and receiving stations in the Oceanside and San Clemente areas. The tower served the region for about a decade and then fell into disuse as new technologies took over. Looking to divest itself of the surplus property, AT&T sold Redonda Mesa back to the Sharp Family Trust in 2002. The trust then sold it to Herbert Massinger, who remodeled the site's unique microwave relay tower into a newly-refurbished residence on 20 acres with ocean views of Catalina, San Clemente and the  Coronado Islands off of Mexico on a clear day.