Doug St. Denis started her life in Coronado. As a newborn, she left the Mercy Hospital across the bridge and came straight to 435 C Avenue. “Last I checked the house on C is still standing!” she says. “My bed was a dresser drawer because two weeks later we moved to Boston where my dad got his master’s degree in engineering from MIT.”
Doug’s father, Lloyd Montague Mustin, was a career Naval Officer and Doug had the experience of growing up on both coasts. Lloyd married Emily in 1932. Doug shares, “They adored each other until her death in 1989. Daddy died in 1999.”
Of her Coronado experience, Doug says, “Coronado is always our favorite place. Both my brothers graduated from Coronado High. I was deprived of that. I ended up staying back in Alexandria, VA and going to boarding school; which I love too! But everybody asks, ‘what class were you?’ and I reply, ‘don’t even ask!’” While she laughs, Doug does point out that she attended Sacred Heart Parish School.
Doug’s older brother Henry “Hank” C. Mustin graduated from CHS in 1950 and from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1955. He retired as a Vice Admiral. Her younger brother, Thomas Morton Mustin, graduated from CHS in 1958, the Naval Academy in 1962, and Harvard Law in 1975. He passed on July 5, 2022.
The USS MUSTIN (DDG 89) is docked in San Diego. It is named in honor of the four Navy Mustins: Doug’s grandfather Henry C. Mustin, her dad Lloyd, and her brothers Hank and Tom. Doug and her sisters-in-law sponsored the ship.
Starting Her Own Family
When Doug was “too young” she married a Naval Officer. He was in flight training in Pensacola, eventually bringing the couple to California. Doug says, “We had our three kids sort of up and down the coast, and then we ended up coming here in the ’60s. My kids had the absolute pleasure of being raised in Coronado. They love it!”
Coronado is known for its generational families and Doug is proud to be a matron of that experience. “My daughter, Terry, with her husband, just moved back here from LA. They live down at the landing. Then my grandkids are raised in Coronado, so it’s a real family place for us.”
Coronado is Still as Magical as Ever
Doug has had a firsthand experience in how Coronado has changed over the years, noting that her time here began long before there was a bridge. She recalls, “We rode back and forth on the ferry and had free rein in town. So did my kids too. It’s just a safe place. I know that no place is absolutely safe, but it’s pretty safe.
“I have been in love with Coronado, and I love the relationship with the Navy. Since I’m from a Navy family, I have so much respect for that. I love the way the town integrates the civilians and the service and takes care of their people. For the enlisted people who struggle to raise families financially, everybody jumps in and helps.”
Doug sums it up, “Asking if Coronado has changed… it probably has, but good Lord so have I!”
Finding Love in a Small Town: Doug & Dale
“My Coronado story is one of a really great childhood. I was very blessed. I grew up as the only girl between two brothers, both of them graduated from Coronado High and then from the Naval Academy; as did my first husband, he was a classmate of my older brother Hank.”
Looking back on her first marriage, she recollects, “We were married for 18 years. It was tough to move on from, that is a nice way of putting it. But the best thing that happened was when I was living as a single mom with these rowdy teenagers on A Avenue. My neighbors said, ‘We just want to let you know we’re going back east for the summer. Our architect is going to be house sitting for us and he’s going through divorce. So don’t be scared if you see a strange car and a strange guy.’ Well, that was Dale.
“That turned out to be the love of my life. It was the summer of 1976; it was the summer of love. We got married in 1978 and we were together for 40 years until he died eight years ago. He was a wonderful architect. I was always an artist and an actor. When I met him, he showed me architecture. I learned the importance of the built environment and how it affects our lives, our moods – everything!”
Architecture, an Unexpected Next Act
Being with Dale opened her eyes to a completely new industry to love – architecture. Doug says, “I’ve always known the power of art and the power of film, but the power of architecture just thrilled me! I ended up going back to school at 51 or something. I never did graduate from college because I got married the first time at 17, which as I said was too young. But I went back to NewSchool of Architecture & Design across the bridge, which has a five year program.”
At the time, Doug had been working in Dale’s office, St. Denis & Associates, located in a Victorian house on State Street in San Diego. Doug says if she had it to do over again, she would choose to be an architect.
Dale encouraged Doug’s curiosity. He said, if nothing else, she could learn to do a set of working drawings. Doug recalls, “I got so hooked on it and ended up graduating with honors. I became a grandmother in my fifth year, and I was the oldest person in the school – including my teachers! But it was so much fun.”
It all Comes Back to Coronado
“I’ve always been involved in Coronado and the art association,” says Doug. “I followed the council issues. When I graduated from architecture school in 1994, my husband had been on design review which he sort of shared with me.”
Those conversations helped prepare Doug for when she got the call from Patty Schmidt, who Doug refers to as a “beloved city Councilwoman for 16 years. She died in 2010, but she was so respected and so loved.” A local paper shared Doug’s graduation and Patty picked up the phone.
“She called me at home, and she said, ‘Doug, it’s Patty Schmidt. There’s going to be an opening for the Design Review Commission and I want you to know if you’ll apply for it, I will support you in that.’”
Patty explained the details to Doug and advocated for her. “She said, ‘You’re born for this. You love architecture, you love this town, you want to preserve the qualities that we all love about Coronado. You know design. You’re good with people.’”
“She just sold me on it,” says Doug. “It was such an adventure for me, and by that time Dale had termed out of design review. He was a planning commissioner, and I was a design review commissioner.”
The couple went to a few meetings before she joined to see how they operated. Doug was sold. “I thought, ‘Yeah I can do this.’ I’m passionate about it. As a brand new graduate of architecture school I was strong in my opinions. Especially in NewSchool, the teachers are all working architects in San Diego. They taught what makes a community work architecturally, and the importance of architecture in all the things.”
776 Orange Avenue
The first commission meeting may not have been what she expected, but Doug will always be Doug. “I thought, I’ll just be kind of quiet here. See what everybody says before I open my mouth. But the building that came up was to defy everything I knew and loved about architecture and what makes the city work. I thought ‘this is not good.’ I just had to speak up. To this day, I still feel that way about the space. It’s the Pacific Bell building at 8th Street and Orange Avenue. The reason I was so opposed to it is it’s a fake building. Nobody is inside. What’s inside is all this Pac Bell equipment. There’s no light in the window. There’s nobody coming and going – there’s no life! Which, of course, every community on main street needs.
“I still feel that way about that building. Our town is what design review focuses on. It is the commercial streets and it’s so important to have life. To have local storefronts that we know and love and know our names. That’s what makes it a community.”
This first meeting fueled Doug’s passion even more. She found herself applying for the Historic Resource Commission. “I’m a little more lenient now, but I was like a preservationist to a fault. I didn’t want to take down any old wall. I just love this town, and I love old houses. I’ve lived in houses that are practically falling down but I love them.”
From One Board to the Next
When Doug termed out of Design Review a position came up on the Planning Commission. She anticipated a conflict of interest as Dale was chair of Planning Commission and there were only five spots. “I called the mayor at the time, Tom Smisek and said, ‘Tom, I really would like to apply for Planning Commission, is that just too weird with Dale on Planning Commission?’ He said, ‘No, I know you. Each of you are your own person. You don’t always agree on everything. Everything is done with the right thought and the right attitude; I think it would be great, so I’ll support you.’”
As the stories with Doug go, if she puts her mind to something, she achieves it. The days of Doug and Dale on the Planning Commission together, she calls the happiest days.
Cultural Arts Commission
From one venture to the next, Doug found her next way to give back to Coronado. “I ended up teaming up with my friend Heidi Wilson and co-founding the Coronado Cultural Arts Commission. We met with the mayor, who was Casey Tanaka at the time. Then, we met with all of the artists that we knew and the sculptors and people who really had no voice at that time. We didn’t have any public art so we started that as part of design review. We had a subcommittee which was called the Public Art Committee and I chaired that.
“I think our first public art piece was the Sea Passage by James Hubbell down by the City Hall and the Community Center. James was a friend of mine that I met through Dale. [James] died in in recent months. He was a most a wonderful man, an internationally known sculptor artist. Benefactor to all the arts. He was there every day; he personally laid every tile. It’s just incredible.”
The second big project the CAC took on was the restroom at Spreckels Park. “We had a mosaic tile wall [done by local mosaic artist Kirstin Green], I think it’s been redone since then, but this was way back. [editor’s note: the original concert in the park mosaic was done in 2002 and the two new floral designs in 2017] Through the arts commission grew a spin off. All of the roads of my life led to the Coronado island Film Festival.”
Coronado Island Film Festival (CIFF)
The Coronado Island Film Festival was founded by Doug in 2015. She says, “It’s who we are in Coronado. The support, understanding, and encouragement of the city itself.”
Doug is a pro at creating things that have never existed before. Looking at her art will be your first indicator of that. Creating an entire film festival from scratch, well that took vision, execution, and a lot of help. Doug says, “With all of the things that I had been involved in with the community, people got to know me. We trusted each other. They would listen to what we had to say and we made It happen. People stepped up and helped us. If I’d known what we had to do, I probably would have been discouraged … starting a nonprofit from scratch. Something I had never done. I’ve been on nonprofit boards, Lamb’s Players and Coronado Historic Association, but I’ve never started one myself.”
It Takes a Village
Doug continues, “I had a lot of help, and a lot of people thought it was a great idea. We have such a history with film in this town. Everybody knows that Some Like It Hot was filmed here in 1958, and that’s huge, but what a lot of people didn’t realize until we came along was that 50 years before that, film was a brand new thing. It would develop and change the world. Those film makers, those pioneers, came to Coronado and they stayed at the Hotel Del.
“They would come down from LA and they would experiment. We even had a film studio here in 1917. We had Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks and Frank Capra. All of the greats of film history were here. I can’t think of another town within Hollywood that really can say that.
“Our way of celebrating is the Film Festival. The 200 stars [laid out on the sidewalks during the Film Festival] are all people who’ve actually been here, not just whose movies we’ve shown. They’ve all been here for work or play or both. Some have ended up buying property here. I just think it’s the best thing to happen.”
Changes at CIFF
One of the biggest changes to the organization was hiring Merridee Book as CEO. Doug explains, “My kids are saying to me, ‘Mom you can’t do this. You want this to last forever, and you can’t work 60 hours a week. You have to have a succession plan.’
“Right away I thought of Merridee. We brought her on and she’s so smart, so good. It’s taken a lot of the heavy lifting off my plate which is how I am able to paint more. We thank our lucky stars every day that we have her.”
Doug adds with a chuckle, “We also get a two for one, as her husband John is great. He’s very well connected in the arts and in San Diego. Plus he’s our bartender at the Classic Film Series.”
Another contributor that Doug is happy to have is Leonard Maltin. The festival has grown every year and he’s been there since the start. “He’s probably the best known living film critic and author today. We adore him and his wife Alice. Lucky for us, they adore us so they come every year and they make it fun.”
Film Festival Experience
One aspect of the film festival that Doug really embraces is the range of talent. “All these film makers come from far and wide at every level of their craft. From Oscar winners to students. We welcome them and they tell us that they’ve been to a lot of film festivals in the world, and they have never felt so welcome and so special. That’s this community – we have 200 volunteers and most of them, though not all, are local. They embrace the host role and they welcome everyone with open arms. That doesn’t go unnoticed, it’s everywhere. It’s at all the venues and all the restaurants. It’s a really special five days that the town is just sort of electric. We’re exhausted but we’re already working on next year, which is our 10th year.”
Doug boasts, “Merridee has developed a really strong relationship with the major studios. It’s really hard as a new festival, which we aren’t anymore, but you’re not known. To get a major studio film, we used all of our people that we could to make it happen. Lisa Bruce is a local and she’s an Academy Award nominated producer. She brought us a film. My kids were in the in industry; my son was at Searchlight. Now the studios contact us and say, ‘Hey we’ve got a film you might be interested in. We’d like to show it at your festival.’ We had so many wild, fabulous films this year. I think we’re going to have several nominated for Academy Awards.”
Your Neighbor, Doug St. Denis
With all of her accomplishments and contributions to the city, Doug is still a regular neighbor. She invites me over to see her home and shares the places she loves to visit in town.
“We’re so blessed to have a special relationship with the Brigantine. After every Classic Film Series, once a month, everybody ends up in the Brig bar. We order oysters and talk about the movies and now they know us.”
Another favorite stop is The Henry and their sister restaurant Blanco. Doug also adds, “Of course, Little Frenchie is my all time favorite. Tartine is always good. I love Mary Ann Berta. I like to say it’s like Paris – you can’t have a bad meal in Coronado.”
The Coronado Times welcomes ‘Meet Your Neighbor’ suggestions from our readers of locals to profile. Email your nomination here.
