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portola valley neighborhood guide · property nerds® at compass
Alpine Hills, Portola Valley Homes for sale, recent sales and a Property Nerd’s guide
A 1950s hillside subdivision of one-acre-plus lots on Golden Oak and Bear Gulch drives above the Alpine Road and Arastradero Road corner, with the Hillbrook and Pine Ridge streets next door.
Alpine Hills by the numbers
alpine hills by the numbers · live from the mls
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Calculated in your browser from MLS data for Alpine Hills (approximate outline traced from the boundary streets). Sales are single-family homes, townhomes and condos.
homes in alpine hills · live from the mls
Homes for sale, for rent and recently sold in Alpine Hills
Every active listing, rental and closed sale in Alpine Hills from the MLS, updated automatically, with a map of the neighborhood outline.
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Listings come from MLSListings and other MLSs through IDX and show their listing brokerage; confirm details with the listing agent. The map outline is the neighborhood boundary used by our listing search (Alpine Hills (approximate outline traced from the boundary streets)); it may not match every local definition.
the story
How Alpine Hills came to be
Alpine Hills starts at a roadhouse. At Alpine and Arastradero roads, the Alpine Inn building is California Historical Landmark No. 825, Casa de Tableta, which the state credits to Felix Buelna in the 1850s. The Town's archive says the roadhouse and the steep hills behind it, which rise about 400 feet above that intersection, stayed with one family for more than seventy years, leased out for hay, grazing and woodcutting. Once that ownership ended, ideas came and went: an airplane landing field near today's Bear Gulch Drive, then a dude ranch with houses scattered along horse trails, whose first roads were graded before the plan was dropped.
The modern subdivision began in 1954. The archive's history says developer Don Holden built Alpine Hills on 232 acres in three sections (1954, 1955 and 1957), with lots of one acre or more and about 170 home sites. The terrain set the plan: lots on the cul-de-sacs were made larger, houses were grouped along the ridges, and the ravines were left alone. A 1961 newspaper item in the archive already counted 110 houses.
Neighbors filled in around it. Hillbrook Drive, 26 one-acre lots running from Alpine Road to Sausal Drive, was mapped in 1959. In 1962 a 25-acre patch between Stanford land, Westridge and Alpine Hills turned out to have no clear owner, the archive says, because every developer had assumed it belonged to someone else; it became the Pine Ridge lots on Pineridge Way and Minoca Road. Creek Park Drive (1982) and Paso del Arroyo (1989) came last, along Alpine Road.
streets and homes
The streets and the houses
Golden Oak Drive is the main loop, leaving Alpine Road near Los Trancos Road and rejoining it near Arastradero Road, with Bear Gulch Drive looping inside it. The courts hang off the ridges: Cordova, Valencia, Holden, Toro, Granada, Alhambra, Tagus and Montara, with Peak Lane linking up to Cervantes Road and Minoca Road and Pineridge Way at the top. Expect steep driveways, houses on ridge-top pads and wooded ravines below.
The Town zones nearly all of it R-E/1A/SD-1a, one-acre residential estate with a slope-density rule. On the original Alpine Hills streets the median lot is about 1.2 acres and the assessor's median year built is about 1960; roughly three-quarters of the dated houses were built before 1970 and about 17 since 2000. Assessor records show mostly one-story houses and about a quarter two-story. The Town's 2017 Ground Movement Potential Map rates about 70 percent of the area's single-family parcels Sbr, stable shallow bedrock.
Hillbrook Drive and Paso del Arroyo sit lower, between Sausal Drive and Alpine Road, on one-acre lots. Across Alpine Road, Creek Park Drive and, on lower Los Trancos Road, Firethorn Way and Meadowcreek Court back onto Los Trancos Creek; most of those parcels touch a FEMA A flood zone in the Town's data. On the north edge, Stanford's roughly 75-acre property at 3530 Alpine Road is the subject of a Stanford housing proposal: the state environmental filing describes 27 single-family homes and 12 multifamily units on its 7.4-acre northeast corner, with the wooded rest kept as open space with a public trail loop.
streets in alpine hills
- Golden Oak Drive
- Bear Gulch Drive
- Cordova Court
- Valencia Court
- Holden Court
- Toro Court
- Granada Court
- Alhambra Court
- Tagus Court
- Montara Court
- Peak Lane
- Minoca Road
- Pineridge Way
- Hillbrook Drive
- Paso del Arroyo
- Sausal Drive
- Creek Park Drive
- Firethorn Way
- Meadowcreek Court
- Los Trancos Road
- Alpine Road
parks and places
Parks, shops and landmarks near Alpine Hills
- landmark
Alpine Inn (Casa de Tableta)
3915 Alpine Road at Arastradero Road, inside the town: California Historical Landmark No. 825, built in the 1850s by Felix Buelna per the state listing, and still a restaurant.
- open space
Pearson-Arastradero Preserve
City of Palo Alto open space off Arastradero Road, about a mile straight-line from the middle of Alpine Hills: 10.25 miles of trails for hikers, cyclists and riders, dogs on leash, and Arastradero Lake about a 20-minute walk from the parking lot.
- shopping
Nathhorst Triangle
The grocery, hardware store and gas station at Portola and Alpine roads, about 0.6 to 0.8 mile straight-line from the Golden Oak Drive entrances; Ladera Shopping Center is about 1.2 miles.
- school
Corte Madera School
Portola Valley School District's grades 4-8 campus at 4575 Alpine Road, about a mile straight-line from the middle of Alpine Hills. Check the address with the district.
- civic
Portola Valley Town Center
765 Portola Road, about 1.6 miles straight-line: library, Town Hall, community hall and fields.
schools and commute
School districts and getting around
School districts
Alpine Hills is in the Portola Valley School District (Ormondale School for TK-3 at 200 Shawnee Pass; Corte Madera School for grades 4-8 at 4575 Alpine Road, each about a mile away straight-line) and the Sequoia Union High School District. Attendance boundaries change, so check the exact address with each district.
Portola Valley School District guide · Sequoia Union guide · Silicon Valley school districts
Getting around
- I-280: the Alpine Road interchange is about 1.9 miles straight-line from the middle of Alpine Hills, out past Ladera.
- Arastradero Road leaves Alpine Road at the Alpine Inn corner and heads east into Palo Alto, past the Pearson-Arastradero Preserve.
- Caltrain: California Avenue station is about 4.6 miles and Palo Alto station about 4.7 miles straight-line; Menlo Park station is about 5.2 miles.
- Bus: SamTrans service in Portola Valley has been limited to school-oriented trips; check current schedules.
- Inside the neighborhood, Golden Oak Drive's two Alpine Road entrances and Hillbrook Drive are the ways in; Peak Lane connects to Cervantes Road and Arrowhead Meadows.
nerd notes
Buying or selling in Alpine Hills: what we check
Buying here
- Get a geotechnical read on the lot. Most parcels are mapped Sbr (stable shallow bedrock) on the Town's 2017 Ground Movement Potential Map, but about 30 carry P or M codes; Town minutes describe Pd as unconsolidated slopes subject to deep landslide movement. Steep driveways, retaining walls and drainage deserve an inspection of their own.
- Confirm sewer or septic. County maps put only about 69 of roughly 245 single-family parcels inside West Bay Sanitary District's service area, so many houses use septic; ask for inspection and pumping records.
- Run the Town's numbers for the parcel. The R-E/1A/SD-1a zoning ties what you can build to lot area and slope, so a steep acre allows less than a flat one; ask the Town planner before you design an addition.
- On the Los Trancos Creek side of Alpine Road, check the FEMA map: most parcels on Creek Park Drive, Firethorn Way, Meadowcreek Court and lower Los Trancos Road touch an A flood zone in the Town's data.
- Ask about the status of Stanford's housing proposal at 3530 Alpine Road if you are looking near Minoca Road or Valencia Court, and check the current state fire hazard map for the parcel (the Town's data lists nearly all of Alpine Hills as Moderate).
Selling here
- Have geologic or geotechnical reports, retaining-wall and drainage work, and permits for past additions ready; on a hillside lot, buyers ask first.
- Order a septic inspection and pumping report before listing, or document the sewer connection.
- Show the view and the flat usable area separately; on ridge-top lots, buyers want both numbers.
- Measure and list the walk or ride to the Arastradero Preserve and the Alpine Inn corner.
nerd noteCommissions are always negotiable, and we offer bundled services, so ask us what's included.
faq
Alpine Hills questions, answered
Is Alpine Hills on the San Andreas fault?
No Alpine Hills parcels are in the state earthquake fault zone in the Town's parcel data; the fault runs along the valley floor to the west. Slope and soils are the site questions here.
How big are the lots?
One acre or more. The Town zones the area R-E/1A/SD-1a, and the median lot on the original Alpine Hills streets is about 1.2 acres.
Is the Alpine Inn in Portola Valley?
Yes. County parcel records place 3915 Alpine Road inside the incorporated town, at the corner of Arastradero Road. It is California Historical Landmark No. 825, Casa de Tableta.
What is planned on the Stanford land along Alpine Road?
A Stanford housing proposal for 3530 Alpine Road. The state environmental filing describes 27 single-family homes and 12 multifamily units on 7.4 acres at the northeast corner, with the rest of the roughly 75 acres kept as open space with a public trail loop. Check the current status with the Town.
Which schools serve Alpine Hills?
Portola Valley School District (Ormondale and Corte Madera) and Sequoia Union High School District. Check the exact address with each district.
talk to a property nerd
Thinking about Alpine Hills? Let's run your numbers.
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