Where I come from

Steve McNeal

Newport Beach to the Sierra, with a lot of California in between

I was born into a Newport Beach family. We lived on 15th Street, my grandparents were on St. Andrews, and my mom graduated from Newport Harbor High. The beach was simply where life happened.

In fourth grade we moved to Santa Nella and I went to school in Gustine, on the west side of the Central Valley. It was a different world from the coast, and I think it is why the Valley has always felt like home to me, even after I left.

High school was in Big Bear Lake. My family’s business has been in Big Bear for about seventy years, and I spent a lot of time in San Bernardino, Riverside, and the desert with my dad. Mountain towns, lake towns, and desert towns all taught me something different about how people live and what a home means to them.

Newport Beach, Big Bear, and the Central Valley still feel like home.

Today

I live in Nevada now, down in a beautiful valley on the back side of the Heavenly ski resort, not far from Lake Tahoe. I have one adult son and two dogs. Most of my business is in California and some of it is in Tennessee, and I run two separate corporations under the First Capital Mortgage Inc. name to serve both. I walk at least twice a day, lift weights three or four days a week, and get into the hills whenever I can. The mountains are why I live here.