Native San Diegans Bill and Phyllis Munster are leaving town June 27 to take up residence in Bend, Ore., where their children live. ‘It’s time for a change of scenery,’ says Munster.

One of the great characters who’s made San Diego an amusing and respectable place, Bill Munster and wife Phyllis are skipping town June 27, moving to landlocked Bend, Ore. “It’s impossible to conceive of them leaving,” says Jan Percival. “It’s like a tear in the fabric of this town.”

A famous and sometimes infamous Point Loman, Munster served as commodore of the San Diego Yacht Club in 1996. A championship racer known throughout the world’s Olympic, Star and Etchells classes and other sailing circles, Munster is probably better appreciated within San Diego as a perennial jokester, especially of the off-color and politically incorrect variety. Professionally, he’s brokered numerous commercial and industrial real estate transactions over the years, including several years under the aegis of Burnham Real Estate Services.

Two years ago, he and Phyllis purchased and began restoring the Point Loma hillside home built in 1957 by aviation pioneer Claude T. Ryan. Their view is sweeping, from Table Top Mountain near Ensenada on the southern horizon, all the way to Mt. Palomar to the north. And in between, the bay and the city they’ve roamed for 133 years combined. It’s a lot to give up.

“It’s time for a change of scenery,” he says. “It was a tough decision for two native San Diegans to agree to move on. But with all the congestion and local issues — airports, freeway congestion, environmental issues, local politics which at times are a mess — these points all helped us make the choice of moving to Oregon. I think we now have a mayor who cares about the city and is not using his position as a stepping stone, and who is trying to make the city No. 1 again, and with some new blood like Kevin (Faulconer) and others, I wish them well.

“It’s easier to leave when our grandson calls and says he can hardly wait for us to show up so we can go camping and fishing and hiking.”

Adopted as a baby, Bill Munster spent much of his childhood as a near-resident of the San Diego Zoo, where his father, Frank, the owner of Atlas Iron and Wire Works and Atlas Fence Co., built most of the early animal enclosures. He attended the Army and Navy Academy in Carlsbad and later Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. In 1965, the younger Munster was invited to sail with John Scripps on his yacht “Novia del Mar,” sparking a lifetime of sailing and racing that included winning the Lipton Cup and Etchells World Championships, Olympic trials and offshore races to Honolulu and Mexico. The International Etchells Class Association maintains the perpetual trophy for sportsmanship named after Bill Munster.

Munster has served on the boards of La Jolla YMCA, Crimestoppers, Children’s Hospital Celebration of Champions, USSailing, Point Loma Chamber of Commerce, Point Loma Association and others. He represented the San Diego Padres in the acquisition of land and development for their new spring training facility in Peoria, Ariz., a 15-month effort resulting in what some experts say is the best training facility in the major leagues.

He and Phyllis Pogurel, who graduated in the first class at Mission Bay High School and who became the first broker to sell condos at Downtown’s CityFront Terrace, were married in 1980 at the La Playa home of Pete and Nancy Peckham. “About seven years later Phyllis’ son and daughter took me to lunch and asked a question I’ll never forget: ‘Why haven’t you adopted us?’ They were then 18 and 21. Once I recovered, I said I would love to. Phyllis asked me that evening what the kids wanted. She didn’t know and was shocked at my answer. Three months later they were mine. And now we will all be together in Oregon with our grandkids.”

On a recent visit to Bend, where their children had moved, Bill and Phyllis found a great house and bought it.

“Bill is a most tremendous spokesman for yachting worldwide and to have that kind of spokesman in San Diego has been a tremendous benefit to the San Diego yachting community,” says Jim Jessop, the immediate past commodore of the San Diego Yacht Club. “Sorry to see him go.”

— Gary Shaw