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When Ross Cortese was looking for a name for his new residential development area, he didn't go past his own business card. The Ross in Rossmoor is for him -- and the moor part reflects the flat topography of this Orange County, California community. In fact, you'll find Rossmoors all over the U.S. thanks to Cortese's development business in California, Maryland, and New Jersey. But the ones in Florida and Kentucky? Those are just random.
The land on which Ross Cortese built his community of 3,500 homes in the 1950s originated (well, in a European-settler kind of way) as part of Rancho Los Alamitos before it was divided among the heirs of land grantee John Bixby in the 1880s. The fertile land here was used primarily for sugar beet farming. Cortese, playing the local government field, advertised Rossmoor as a subdivision of Los Alamitos and as Long Beach's "smartest new suburb." Rossmoor has long been subject to a bit of a tug-o-war between neighboring cities such as Los Alamitos, Garden Grove, Seal Beach and Long Beach. As things currently stand, Rossmoor remains unincorporated, though it is tended to by a community services district that trims the trees and runs recreational programs. Home to two major shopping centers, Rossmoor gains no sales tax revenue thanks to its unincorporated status -- and Seal Beach annexed one of those centers and claimed the spoils for itself not long after the area's development. View Rossmoor City Guide