Walk to the Sherman Library & Gardens gate on East Coast Highway this month and you will not get in. The entrance has moved around the corner to Dahlia Avenue, a chunk of the grounds sits behind construction fencing, and the 2.2-acre garden that has anchored the Village since 1966 is in the middle of the biggest rebuild in its 60-year history. Most people walking past assume this is a temporary inconvenience, a fence that will come down in a few months. It will not. The project runs into late summer 2027, and it is happening at the same time a handful of the restaurants on the same stretch of PCH are quietly changing ownership. Two of the things Corona del Mar residents treat as permanent are both mid-transition right now, and almost nobody outside the Chamber newsletter seems to have connected the two.
The garden behind the fence
Sherman Library & Gardens broke ground on its "Grow the Gardens" campaign on February 26, 2026, a $17 million revitalization that the Association of Public Gardens Arboreta called the most significant remodel in the institution's history. The plan includes a new Bell Tower entrance, a reworked central garden meant to free up space for educational programming, and a full relocation of the on-site restaurant out to Pacific Coast Highway. Construction is expected to run about 18 months, which puts completion somewhere around late summer 2027, not this fall and not next spring.
The garden dates back further than most residents realize. Arnold Haskell moved from Los Angeles to Corona del Mar in the 1950s and bought a small adobe house that still stands on the property today. He kept acquiring lots around it until he owned the entire block by 1967, then donated the land to a foundation he and the Sherman family had set up in 1951, naming the whole thing after his mentor Moses Hazeltine Sherman. That is 2026's real milestone: not just a construction project, but a 60th anniversary for the institution the Newport Beach City Council has formally called the Village's cultural hub.
The Building Committee chairman, Tim Collins, described the design intent using language that hints at how much local pushback the Foundation anticipated for a project this size, aiming for something that honored "the charm and character for the future of the Corona del Mar Village."
What's actually still open
The garden has not closed. It has just gotten smaller and less predictable, which matters more if you are planning a visit around something specific rather than a casual walk-through.
- The main entrance is temporarily on Dahlia Avenue, not the historic Coast Highway gate. Look for the signage rather than the address.
- Seasonal admission pricing for adults and children started May 15, 2026, timed to the debut of the summer art exhibition Dog Days of Sherman, which is still on view in the garden.
- The second annual Petals & Pistons Car Show runs Saturday, August 15, from 8 to 11 a.m. in the PCH and Dahlia Avenue parking lot, with up to 30 classic and luxury cars on display and food available for purchase. It is a family event, dogs included.
- Hours shift around private bookings during construction season. The garden posted a later-than-usual 11:30 a.m. opening for Wednesday, August 26, which is worth remembering if you are timing a visit around a specific hour rather than just showing up.
None of this is the old Sherman experience. It is a garden actively managing its own disruption while still running a full summer calendar, which is a harder trick than either "closed for construction" or "open as normal."
The other turnover: Coast Highway's restaurant row
A few blocks away, the same kind of quiet handoff is happening at street level, just with liquor licenses instead of building permits.
Foretti's, the wood-fired pizza spot that opened in 2013, is now run under new ownership by longtime restaurateur and Level 1 Sommelier Thad Foret, who brings more than three decades in hospitality to the same recipes and much of the original kitchen team. Down the block, CDM Restaurant arrived with a different kind of backing entirely: Hollywood producer McG partnered with restaurateur Jordan Otterbein, the pair behind Newport Beach's A Restaurant, to build a creative American concept with an unmarked speakeasy underneath called Under CDM, no password or reservation required.
Set that against the anchors that have not moved in decades, and the contrast is the point.
| Restaurant | Status in 2026 | Years in the Village |
|---|---|---|
| Foretti's | New ownership under Thad Foret | Open since 2013 |
| CDM Restaurant | New concept, backed by McG and Jordan Otterbein | Recent addition |
| Rothschild's | Same family ownership | Over 40 years |
| Five Crowns / SideDoor | Same operator, gastropub added 2009 | Since 1965 |
| Avila's El Ranchito | Same family, expanded location | Since 1975, at current PCH spot since 1997 |
Five Crowns has been serving as a replica English country inn since 1965, with the Frank family adding the SideDoor gastropub in 2009 as a more casual sibling under the same roof. Avila's El Ranchito traces back even further in spirit if not location. Sergio Avila brought his mother's recipes to Newport Beach in 1975, opened the original Corona del Mar spot at PCH and Goldenrod in 1997, and expanded to a larger location in 2010 with his wife Marybell and their three daughters still running it. Those two are the counterweight to Foretti's and CDM Restaurant. The Village is not becoming a different place. It is running two different clocks on the same block, one measured in decades and one measured in months.
The rhythm that hasn't moved at all
Against both of those stories sits the one part of the Village that has not changed shape at all: the Saturday farmers market at Marguerite and PCH, a certified organic market that has run continuously since 1996. It is open 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., rain or shine, with parking limited to street spots and a small lot, and it draws growers not typically seen at other Orange County markets. Thirty years without a format change is a longer stretch than either the garden's construction timeline or the restaurant turnover, and it is the thing residents are least likely to mention when asked what's new, precisely because nothing about it is.
The Corona del Mar Chamber of Commerce runs on a similarly steady civic calendar underneath all of this. The Scenic 5K and the annual Christmas Walk, set for December 6, 2026, both happen on a schedule that predates the current construction and restaurant news by years, and both will happen again regardless of whether the Bell Tower entrance is finished on time.
What this actually means if you live here
The easy read on Corona del Mar is that it never changes, a village that looks the same decade over decade. The more accurate read this year is that its two most trusted fixtures, a botanical garden with 60 years of continuity and a restaurant row with multiple 40-plus-year tenants, are both mid-transition at the same moment, while the parts of Village life that actually repeat every single week, the Saturday market and the Chamber's civic events, are the ones holding completely steady. If you're planning around Sherman Gardens for the next year, plan around Dahlia Avenue, not the old gate. If you're picking a dinner spot on East Coast Highway, know that some of what's there is running on new ownership and some of it hasn't changed hands since Nixon was in office. Both are true of the same three blocks, and that is a more interesting Village than the one that supposedly never changes at all.
If you're weighing what any of this means for property values on these same blocks, our breakdown of Corona del Mar housing costs and lifestyle digs into the numbers. And if you ever want a second opinion on what's happening with a specific home in the Village, Emily Sells OC is always glad to talk through it. You can request a free home consultation whenever the time feels right.
