Richard Cavanaugh

Richard Cavanaugh July 4, 1924 - April 29, 2019 Rancho Santa Fe Richard Cavanaugh passed away peacefully surrounded by his family on the morning of April 29, 2019. Richard was born in Los Angeles, California, as one of five children and lived in California all his life. During the Second World War, Richard served in the United States Army Air Corps, flying single and later multi-engine aircraft, including B-29 ferry flights into the Pacific Theater of Operations and after mustering out maintained his pilot's license all his life. After the war, Richard began working with his uncle, learning the plumbing business, which soon took him into building and then real estate development. As founder and President of Newport Pacific, Inc. and various related entities, he developed and built numerous housing developments, commercial buildings and apartments from San Diego to Sacramento, culminating in his signature development project, the Whispering Palms master-planned community in Rancho Santa Fe, California. The development includes a 27-hole golf course and tennis club, now called the Morgan Run Country Club, 616 homes and a 68-room hotel. Richard remained active in his businesses all his life, and his final project in Whispering Palms is the Palma de la Reina complex, a five-acre development that includes 54 apartments, over 20,000 square feet of office space and a 10,000 square foot neighborhood retail center, completed in 2017, when he was 93. Richard's developments won multiple awards including the Pacific Coast Builders Gold Nugget Award, and his projects were profiled in numerous publications. Richard was also an accomplished horseman, winning numerous awards with his Arabian horses, and a longtime member of the Los Caballeros riding group. Richard continued to ride and fly into the last year of his life and maintained his own single-engine airplane until his death. Richard is survived by his wife of 48 years, Christine, and his three children, daughters Melinda and her husband David, Lori and her husband Konrad, and his son Jeff, as well as nine grandchildren, 11 great-grandchildren, and four horses, Mosqof Fame, Percy, Rocko, and Kemar. Please sign the guest book online at legacy.com/obituaries/ ranchosantafereview