Where does Mission Hills spend a Saturday in late October? On October 24, 2026, both of the day's neighborhood events are off the Washington and Goldfinch corridor. A Garden Club talk opens the morning at Mission Hills Nursery on Fort Stockton Drive, and a block party closes the evening on West Lewis Street. Neither is run by an outside promoter. The morning talk is held at a nursery that has been in business since 1910, with one of its staff speaking. The evening party is put on by the shops of a single block.
Read that way, the day doubles as a map of where the neighborhood's longest-running small institutions are, and how little ground they cover.
| Time | What | Where | Who runs it |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8:45–10 a.m. | "California Native Grown & Raised" talk | Mission Hills Nursery, 1525 Fort Stockton Dr. | Mission Hills Garden Club, with nursery staff |
| 7 a.m.–2 p.m. | Coffee | Kettle & Stone, 1619 W. Lewis St. | Café hours |
| 10 a.m.–4 p.m. | Shop hours | Lewis & Fay, 1620 W. Lewis St. | Shop hours |
| 5–9 p.m. | Halloween in the Hills | 1600 block of W. Lewis St. | Businesses on the block |
The morning starts at a nursery older than most of the houses around it
The Mission Hills Garden Club has scheduled "California Native Grown & Raised" for 8:45 to 10 a.m. at the nursery. Jeffrey Kalmonsons from the nursery staff will cover California native plants for fall planting and how to care for them, and the club promises light refreshments for early arrivals. Registration runs through the club's event page. The page doesn't list a fee or say whether nonmembers can come, so check before you go.
The venue matters as much as the topic. In a 2015 history piece, the Presidio Sentinel credits Kate Sessions with founding Mission Hills Nursery in 1910. The Antonicelli family took it over in the 1920s. Accounts differ on the exact year, and a 2017 SOHO report puts the sale to Giuseppe Antonicelli in 1922. The same report says Frank Antonicelli sold the business to the Palafox family in 1989 and that the family bought the land itself in January 2017.
So a business can rent its ground for decades and only later own it. That 2017 purchase is part of why the nursery is still a nursery and not something else. A 2026 Garden Club speaker bio says Fausto Palafox runs it with his wife Toni and son Fausto III, known as "Tiger." The nursery's own site still lists 1525 Fort Stockton Drive as the place to visit. Earlier in 2026, the club held another talk there, this one by Fausto Palafox, in April.
That's the backdrop for an October talk on natives. Kalmonsons is speaking for a nursery with more than a century of San Diego planting behind it, and he's talking about fall planting in the season he's covering. You can leave with a plant list and buy from it before the 10 a.m. finish.
The middle of the day belongs to Lewis Street's regular hours
From Fort Stockton, the next stop is the 1600 block of West Lewis Street, and it's worth getting there well before the party. The block's daytime businesses run on their own clocks, and on a Saturday both of the best-known ones close before Halloween in the Hills begins.
Kettle & Stone at 1619 West Lewis lists Saturday hours of 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Across the street at 1620, Lewis & Fay is open Wednesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The shop describes itself as an interactive store for home furnishings and décor that also offers catering, events, artisanal food and gourmet food subscriptions. Both were on the participant list for the Mission Hills BID's 2026 Taste of Mission Hills on October 14. The BID listed the second one as "Lewis & Fay (Oliver & Rose at Lewis & Fay)."
That timing shapes the day. Someone who comes straight from the nursery talk can get coffee at Kettle & Stone, which is still open, and browse Lewis & Fay once it opens at 10. A first-time visitor who shows up at 5 p.m. for the block party finds those two storefronts already closed for the day.
The evening is a block party the block throws for itself
Writing in the Presidio Sentinel on October 5, Mission Hills BID president Sarah Church described Halloween in the Hills as "an annual event held on the 1600 block of W. Lewis Street. The businesses in that area come together to create a festive block party featuring food, music, games, shopping, and more." She lists it as all ages, 5 to 9 p.m. on Saturday, October 24, 2026.
"Look to storefront windows and your neighbor's porch for décor that's sure to bring joy and some silly scares to your day because Mission Hills is one of San Diego's best destinations for Halloween fun."
That line comes from the same Sentinel column, and it describes how the neighborhood does Halloween: windows on the commercial streets and porches on the residential ones.
The 2025 edition shows the scale. The City of San Diego's event listing for last year called the October 18, 2025 party the 20th annual. It promised live music, magicians, food and cocktail vendors, shopping and children's activities, with free admission. The presenters were Mission Hills Community Preservation and the Historic Shoppes of West Lewis. The requested closure covered one block of West Lewis, between Stephens Street and Palmetto Way. The 2026 lineup, presenters and closure haven't been posted in the same detail, so treat last year's program as a guide to the format, not a promise.
The format is what makes it distinctive. One block, roughly two decades of runs, and a host list that starts with the shops on the street. Even with the city permitting it and the BID promoting it, it remains a small-business event at its core.
Why the day stays this small
The Mission Hills Business Improvement District gives some sense of the scale. In her October column, Church writes that the BID was established by city ordinance in 1989, incorporated in its current nonprofit form in 2004, and counts about 470 member businesses. She also notes that many people who attend the BID's big fall event, Taste, "admit to knowing little-to-nothing of our district." Taste carries visitors on a ticketed trolley loop across the district. October 24 runs the other way. A morning talk with a sign-up list and an evening party on one block both work at walking scale, and they mostly serve people who can get there without a trolley.
The 1989 date also matches the year the SOHO report gives for the Palafox family taking over the nursery business. The neighborhood's business district and its oldest nursery's current operators started out the same year, and on October 24 they share the calendar from opposite ends of the day.
What comes after the 24th
The neighborhood-scale calendar keeps going into November, again run mostly by volunteers and members:
- November 6: The Mission Hills BID holds its annual meeting and board election. Eligible holders of BID business licenses who attend may vote, and the BID's election page still lists the location as to be announced.
- Saturday, November 14, 10 a.m. to noon: The Garden Club's Coffee in the Park meets at Falcon Street Pocket Park and will look at proposed spots for the club's Legacy Stones and other planned community projects, according to the club's events calendar.
- Late November: The club lists a Fall Pot Luck and Succulent Wreath Workshop from 6 to 8 p.m. at United Church of Christ, 4070 Jackdaw Street. The event page gives both November 19 and November 29, so confirm the date with the club.
At the neighborhood's southern edge, the larger regional project keeps moving. SANDAG lists its Washington Street and Mission Valley Complete Streets project as under construction, with work scheduled for 2025 through 2027. The plans include a walking path along the south side of Washington Street from India Street to University Avenue and a bus island on the north side near India Street. SANDAG's most recent notice set night work at Hancock and Washington streets for October 12 and 15, between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. Both nights will have passed by the weekend of the block party.
The schedule for the 24th itself is simple. Be at Fort Stockton Drive by 8:45 for the native plant talk, get to West Lewis before Kettle & Stone closes at 2 and Lewis & Fay at 4, and come back to the 1600 block at 5 for the party.
At Fine Properties San Diego, we follow Mission Hills at the scale of single blocks and long-running local businesses, because that's how the neighborhood is valued. If your Saturday on Lewis Street has you wondering what your own Mission Hills home would bring this fall, Request a Complimentary Market Valuation and we'll prepare one for your street.
