The Highlands, San Mateo Homes for sale, recent sales and a Property Nerd’s guide

The streets follow the ridge. Lexington Avenue runs along the western crest above the watershed and is the longest street in county parcel records, with about 140 lots; Bunker Hill Drive loops through the middle, and Ticonderoga Drive climbs in from Polhemus Road at the south end. Many names come from the Revolutionary War: Lexington, Bunker Hill, Ticonderoga, Bennington, Oriskany, Brandywine, Trenton, White Plains, Cowpens and Yorktown. Short places branch off the south end (Sheraton, Powhatan, Turtle Bay, French Creek, Stoney Point), and Laurel Hill Drive, Tarrytown Street, Seneca Lane, Roxbury Lane and Forge Road fill the north end near Crystal Springs Road.

An original Highlands Eichler is a post-and-beam house with floor-to-ceiling glass and an open plan, as the community association describes them. Like Eichlers in general, they sit on concrete slab foundations with radiant heating pipes in the slab and no attic, as the X-100 nomination puts it. The hillside adds a twist: a mid-century modern magazine notes original two-story Eichlers built on lots too small for the single-story plan, and many later second-story additions that do not always match the originals. Lots run about 7,900 to 10,400 square feet for the middle half, by our measurement of county parcel maps, and nearly all are zoned R-1/S-8, the county's single-family district.

Jurisdiction is simple inside the Census-defined Highlands: 801 of its 807 parcels are flagged unincorporated in county parcel records, and the other six carry no flag. The lines get finer at the southeast corner, where the attached homes at the south end of Ticonderoga Drive and the houses on Lakewood Circle are inside the City of San Mateo; they are covered in our Baywood Park & College Heights guide. Near Polhemus Road, check the parcel record before you assume which rules apply.