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palo alto neighborhood guide · property nerds® at compass
Old Palo Alto, Palo Alto Homes for sale, recent sales and a Property Nerd’s guide
About 1,200 single-family lots on the old Seale ranch between Embarcadero Road and Oregon Expressway: mostly 1920s and 1930s houses on large lots, Gamble Garden in the middle, Caltrain at the corner.
Old Palo Alto by the numbers
old palo alto by the numbers · live from the mls
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Calculated in your browser from MLS data for Old Palo Alto: Embarcadero Rd to Oregon Expwy, Alma St to Middlefield Rd (city neighborhood outline). Sales are single-family homes, townhomes and condos.
homes in old palo alto · live from the mls
Homes for sale, for rent and recently sold in Old Palo Alto
Every active listing, rental and closed sale in Old Palo Alto 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 (Old Palo Alto: Embarcadero Rd to Oregon Expwy, Alma St to Middlefield Rd (city neighborhood outline)); it may not match every local definition.
the story
How Old Palo Alto came to be
Old Palo Alto was ranch land first. It was part of Rafael Soto's Rancho Rinconada del Arroyo de San Francisquito; in 1865 Henry Seale received a large share of it for helping the Greer family defend its title, and in 1887 he sold 697 acres to Timothy Hopkins for the town that became Palo Alto. The land south of Embarcadero Road, later the Seale Addition, stayed mostly ranch land for a while. In 1902 Edwin Gamble's family, of Procter & Gamble, built a three-story house and carriage house at 1431 Waverley Street, and in 1908 Walter A. Hoff laid out its formal gardens. Peninsula Hospital opened on Embarcadero Road in 1910.
In 1904 Alfred Seale subdivided much of the remaining ranch and sold the lots at public auction, pitching Palo Alto's climate as a middle ground between San Jose and San Francisco. He and contractor Gus Laumeister paid to grade and surface the streets before selling. The tract was annexed to Palo Alto in 1917, when it was called the South Palo Alto tract, and the building boom came in the 1920s and 1930s. Birge Clark, who opened his Palo Alto practice in 1922, designed every house on Coleridge Avenue between Cowper and Webster streets, and artist Pedro de Lemos, then director of the Stanford museum, built his own Spanish Colonial Revival compound at Waverley Oaks between 1931 and 1941.
The southern edge is newer than it looks. Oregon Avenue was lined with houses until voters approved an expressway on June 5, 1962, by 9,432 to 9,030; more than 90 homes were moved or demolished and the road was built over the following year. Elizabeth Gamble left her house and garden to the city when she died in 1981, and it opened as a public garden in 1985. Why the neighborhood is called Old Palo Alto is not settled in the sources we checked; its historic names are the Seale Addition and the South Palo Alto tract.
streets and homes
The streets and the houses
The streets continue downtown's tilted grid. Alma, Emerson, Ramona, Bryant, Waverley, Cowper, Webster, Byron and Tasso streets run northwest to southeast, and the cross streets are Seale, Santa Rita, Tennyson, Lowell, Coleridge, Washington, Rinconada, North California and Nevada avenues, plus Churchill Avenue coming in from the Alma Street crossing and Kellogg, Kingsley and Melville avenues near the Embarcadero end. By parcel count the longest residential runs are Emerson Street (102), Tennyson Avenue (94), Waverley Street (86) and Bryant Street (84).
Lots are big by Palo Alto standards. City parcel data counts about 1,200 single-family parcels with a median lot of about 7,500 square feet; a quarter are 10,000 square feet or more and 63 exceed 20,000. The R-1(10000) zone, with its larger minimum lot size, covers 332 parcels, concentrated on Waverley Street, Coleridge Avenue, Bryant Street, Lowell Avenue and Churchill Avenue; most of the rest is R-1. Multifamily housing is limited to about 100 parcels, 53 of them on Alma Street, zoned RM-20. There are 41 flag lots, and Waverley Oaks is a private lane.
Half of the dated single-family parcels (606 of 1,192) record a year built before 1940, mostly in the 1920s and 1930s, and about one in five (219) records 2000 or later, so expect original Spanish and Colonial Revival houses and bungalows next to new two-story houses. Fifty-nine parcels carry a Category 1 to 4 listing in the city's Historic Inventory, including five Category 1 buildings, such as the de Lemos house and 1990 Cowper Street. Rebuilds and second stories go through the city's two-story standards or Individual Review, and every parcel here is in FEMA Zone X in the city's parcel data.
streets in old palo alto
- Embarcadero Road
- Waverley Street
- Bryant Street
- Cowper Street
- Emerson Street
- Ramona Street
- Webster Street
- Byron Street
- Tasso Street
- Middlefield Road
- Alma Street
- Seale Avenue
- Santa Rita Avenue
- Tennyson Avenue
- Lowell Avenue
- Coleridge Avenue
- Washington Avenue
- Rinconada Avenue
- Churchill Avenue
- North California Avenue
- Nevada Avenue
- Kellogg Avenue
- Waverley Oaks
parks and places
Parks, shops and landmarks near Old Palo Alto
- garden
Elizabeth F. Gamble Garden, 1431 Waverley Street
The 1902 Gamble house, carriage house, 1948 tea house and gardens on a 2.45-acre city parcel, open to the public free of charge since 1985 and run by a nonprofit with more than 300 volunteers.
- park
Bowden Park, 2380 High Street
A 2-acre park near the California Avenue station, established in 1952 and redesigned in 1961 by San Francisco landscape designer Robert Royston, with a lawn framed by clipped boxwood, a playground and picnic tables.
- park
Bowling Green Park, 474 Embarcadero Road
Two acres on the site of the 1910 Peninsula Hospital, with a lawn bowling green built in 1933 and 1934 and opened in 1935; the open lawn outside the fence is public.
- landmark
Pedro de Lemos House, Waverley Oaks
A Spanish Colonial Revival compound the artist built for himself from 1931 to 1941, about 9,000 square feet, listed on the National Register on January 10, 1980. It is private; view it from the street.
- shopping
California Avenue
Across the tracks from the neighborhood's southern corner, the pedestrian stretch of California Avenue hosts a Sunday farmers market, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
- shopping
Town & Country Village
An open-air center that opened in 1953 on 14 acres at El Camino Real and Embarcadero Road, built around 70 to 100 old oaks, about a quarter mile west of the Embarcadero and Alma corner (approximate).
schools and commute
School districts and getting around
School districts
Old Palo Alto is served by the Palo Alto Unified School District. No public school sits inside the neighborhood lines. Walter Hays Elementary is across Middlefield Road at 1525 Middlefield, Frank S. Greene Jr. Middle School is at 750 N. California Avenue a few blocks east of Middlefield, and Palo Alto High School is at 50 Embarcadero Road across Alma Street and the tracks. PAUSD assigns schools by address and attendance boundaries change, so check the exact address with the district.
Getting around
- California Avenue Caltrain is about 0.1 mile from the neighborhood's southern corner near Bowden Park and roughly half a mile from its middle (straight line).
- Palo Alto Caltrain (University Avenue) is about 0.6 to 1.8 miles away depending on the block (straight line).
- Oregon Expressway and Embarcadero Road share an interchange with US-101 about 1 to 2 miles east (approximate); to the west, Oregon Expressway crosses El Camino Real toward Stanford Research Park, and Embarcadero Road leads to El Camino and Stanford.
- The Bryant Street bike boulevard runs the length of the neighborhood and continues south across Oregon Expressway to East Meadow Drive.
- Planned rail work: in December 2025 the city chose a partial underpass for the Churchill Avenue crossing plus a bike and pedestrian tunnel near Seale Avenue to Peers Park; both are in preliminary engineering, with no construction dates yet.
nerd notes
Buying or selling in Old Palo Alto: what we check
Buying here
- Near Alma Street, Churchill Avenue or Seale Avenue, read the latest Churchill grade separation plans. The chosen partial underpass drops eastbound Churchill under the tracks to a lowered T-intersection with Alma, and property impacts are still being refined in preliminary engineering.
- Before you plan a rebuild, check the parcel's historic status. Fifty-nine parcels have a Category 1 to 4 listing, and the city's parcel data also flags properties found eligible in a 1998 survey; either can bring Historic Resources Board review.
- A new two-story house or a second-floor addition of 150 square feet or more must meet the city's two-story objective standards (adopted February 2025) or go through Individual Review, which weighs privacy and massing against the neighbors.
- Mature trees are protected: oaks from 11.5 inches in diameter, coast redwoods from 18 inches and most other mature trees from 15 inches. Get an arborist's read on any tree near a planned addition or basement.
- Many blocks are in the Old Palo Alto residential parking permit district: cars without a permit are limited to 2 hours, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays, and each home can buy up to five annual permits. Check the city map for your block.
Selling here
- Have the historic status, lot size and zoning (R-1 or R-1(10000)) ready, plus a survey for any flag lot; buyers planning a rebuild ask for these first.
- Show the Zone X flood designation from the city's parcel report, and confirm it on FEMA's map, since buyers coming from Crescent Park or east of Middlefield will ask.
- If the house is near the Churchill or Seale crossings, disclose the rail project plainly and point buyers to the city's project page rather than guessing at impacts.
- For a 1920s or 1930s house, document original features and any foundation, electrical or sewer lateral work; original Spanish and Colonial Revival detailing is part of the value case for buyers who want to keep the house.
nerd noteCommissions are always negotiable, and we offer bundled services, so ask us what's included.
faq
Old Palo Alto questions, answered
Where are Old Palo Alto's boundaries?
The city maps it as the area between Embarcadero Road and Oregon Expressway, from Alma Street and the Caltrain tracks to Middlefield Road.
Why is it called Old Palo Alto?
The sources we checked don't settle it. Historically the land was the Seale ranch, sold off from 1904 as the Seale Addition and annexed to Palo Alto in 1917 as the South Palo Alto tract.
Is Old Palo Alto in a flood zone?
The city's parcel data puts every parcel in FEMA Zone X, outside the mapped 100-year floodplain. Confirm the current FEMA map for any specific address.
What is happening at the Churchill Avenue rail crossing?
In December 2025 the City Council chose a partial underpass that takes eastbound Churchill under the tracks to a lowered intersection with Alma, plus a bike and pedestrian tunnel near Seale Avenue. Design and environmental work come next.
Which school district serves Old Palo Alto?
The Palo Alto Unified School District. Schools are assigned by address and boundaries change, so confirm any address with PAUSD.
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