What other characteristics? Size? Shape? Color? Evergreen or deciduous? Flowers? Fruits? And so on. More information about site conditions and maintenance situation would also get you more useful answers.
If you want a huge conifer in that spot, complete with perpetual shade, resin drippings, cones and needles.
We are up for ideas. Some shade would be nice. Both evergreen and deciduous options. Flowers are not necessary. Site is in our front yard leading to front door/patio. We are about 6 miles from the ocean and normally get morning/evening fog with mild temperatures. In the later summer/autumn, there is no fog and HOT days (90-100). One tree I am looking to put in a large container. Currently we have a japanese maple. It does fine in most of the year, but this time of year the leaves begin to fry. The second tree to be planted in the ground next to the lawn. Shaded at the roots and but full sun on the rest of the area. Currently we have a small gingko there and it is not doing well. Leaves are getting yellow already with large brown spots on the sagging leaves.
Have a look at the plant selection guide portion of the Sunset Western Garden Book, near the front. The 2007 edition has the Trees section starting on page 79. There is also Trees & Shrubs for Containers on p. 123 and Plants for Dry Areas on p. 127. (Pinus torreyana is on page 544 of the Western Plant Encyclopedia part of the book: "Fast growth to at least 40-60 ft. tall, 30-50 ft. wide"; one in Sacramento was 133' tall with an average crown spread of 70' during 1989; another, planted in Carpinteria during 1888, was 126' tall with an average crown spread of 130' in 1993).
Only when heavily irrigated. In the wild stands in San Diego, it very rarely grows more than 5-10m tall, and most are less.
"A rags to riches story: it is rare, small and often crooked in the wild; large, prized and exuberant in cultivation. Of monumental size, with a hefty trunk, rounded and airy crown, and grayish needles" --Jacobson, NORTH AMERICAN LANDSCAPE TREES (1996, Ten Speed, Berkeley) A garden setting is of course what is being discussed here.
The ones I saw in gardens in San Diego a few years ago were more like the wild trees, than like the large specimens with better water supply further north in California. Larger pines in San Diego were (from what I remember) mostly P. canariensis. And given likely water supply trends, availability of water for garden irrigation is set to reduce, probably quite substantially.
