GOP's Mitt Romney takes to life in new California home

SAN DIEGO — When Mitt Romney breezed into a book-signing here recently, some people from Massachusetts may not have recognized him.

True, his hair was slicked back in signature style, but his rumpled cotton shirt looked nothing like the pressed suits he favored while governor of the Bay State. Tufts of gray hair poked above the open neck, and a bronze California glow replaced the pasty complexion normally found amid a New England winter.

Since losing his presidential bid in 2008, Romney has gone West Coast. It's part of a personal and political repositioning as he looks to avoid campaign trouble spots and reorder his life ahead of a second White House campaign in 2012.

Romney not only sold his family home in Belmont, Mass., but he bought a house — for $12 million — in the northern San Diego community of La Jolla. He traded a snowy commute for early morning beach strolls amid the dog walkers. And he's become a familiar face at California political events, addressing the state Republican convention last month and campaigning on behalf of his former Bain Capital protege, Meg Whitman, a candidate for governor.

That prompted speculation Romney may want to run for one of California's Senate seats or governor himself, but he laughs off the prospect.

"I wanted to be where I could hear the waves," Romney said, despite living for most of his adult life on the Atlantic coast.

The house purchase was part of a personal downsizing — at least square-footagewise — that occurred after Romney wrapped up his presidential campaign and watched the eventual GOP nominee, Arizona Sen. John McCain, take a drubbing over his vast real estate holdings.

Romney also had just spent $47 million of his own money on his campaign, and the stock market, where he invested the bulk of the remaining fortune he built as a venture capitalist, was in a nosedive.

Romney and his wife, Ann, sold the 6,500-square-foot Massachusetts colonial where they raised their five sons, fetching $3.5 million. They also unloaded a 9,500-square-foot family retreat at the Deer Valley ski resort in Utah for close to its $5.25 million asking price.

The couple held onto their waterfront home at Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire, while adding a 3,000-square-foot oceanfront house carved from the California estate once owned by actor Cliff Robertson.