Downtown Burlingame Homes for sale, recent sales and a Property Nerd’s guide

The railroad came first. A 2008 historic inventory prepared for the city says the San Francisco and San Jose line through the old San Mateo Rancho was finished in 1863, and for years Burlingame passengers waited at a shed at the 'Oak Grove Crossing.' The permanent depot opened on October 10, 1894: a Mission Revival station designed by architect George H. Howard Jr., now California State Landmark No. 846 and on the National Register as the first permanent example of Mission Revival architecture. The local historical society says the Burlingame Hillsborough History Museum opened inside it in 2008.

Town lots followed the trains. The city's history page dates Map No. 1 of the Town of Burlingame to 1897, and the General Plan describes that first subdivision as hundreds of parcels generally 50 feet wide and 150 feet deep. The first two stores opened on Burlingame Square, across from the station, in 1901. In 1903 the Burlingame Land Company had surveyor Davenport Bromfield plat the area bounded by Oak Grove Avenue, El Camino Real, Burlingame Avenue and the tracks; two years later it was subdivided and became the downtown hub. After the 1906 earthquake the town's population grew from about 200 to about 1,000 in a year, and Burlingame incorporated in 1908.

The Downtown Specific Plan says the Burlingame Avenue commercial area grew west from the station in the early 1900s until it reached El Camino Real, which is where the shops stop and the eucalyptus rows take over. Early houses were moved out of the way: the 2008 inventory found two on Douglas Avenue and one on Donnelly Avenue that started out on Burlingame Avenue (private homes, no public access). The city adopted the Downtown Specific Plan in 2010 and last amended it in 2026.