Balboa Island is a tiny yet beautiful island that sits right off the coast of Newport Beach in Southern California. The small enclave was once nothing more than a sandbar near the small wharf that operated there in the 1800s.As commercial operations wound down in the bay at the end of the 1800s, an enterprising developer transformed the tiny sandbar into a full-fledged island. Balboa Island, as it would become known, was a summer retreat for wealthy residents of nearby Los Angeles and Pasadena.