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portola valley neighborhood guide · property nerds® at compass
Portola Road & Town Center, Portola Valley Homes for sale, recent sales and a Property Nerd’s guide
The valley floor along Portola Road, from the Town Center to the Nathhorst Triangle at Alpine Road, with the 1920s Brookside streets, Willowbrook Drive and the town's everyday shops.
Portola Road & Town Center by the numbers
portola road & town center by the numbers · live from the mls
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Calculated in your browser from MLS data for Portola Road & Town Center (approximate outline traced from the boundary streets). Sales are single-family homes, townhomes and condos.
homes in portola road & town center · live from the mls
Homes for sale, for rent and recently sold in Portola Road & Town Center
Every active listing, rental and closed sale in Portola Road & Town Center 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 (Portola Road & Town Center (approximate outline traced from the boundary streets)); it may not match every local definition.
the story
How Portola Road & Town Center came to be
Subdividing in Portola Valley started here. The Town's historical archive records Portola Terrace, mapped on June 4, 1912 by subdivider Anna Veronica Nathhorst, as the first subdivision within today's town limits: 80 acres of former hayfield cut into 18 lots of 2 to 10 acres. The name stuck. Nathhorst Avenue runs through it, and the Nathhorst Triangle, the wedge between Portola Road, Alpine Road and Nathhorst Avenue, is where the town buys its groceries and gas. In 1985 a 14.7-acre piece once set aside for another school became the 12 lots of Applewood Lane.
Across Portola Road, Brookside started as ranch and orchard land. In 1924 developers Norwood Smith and F. W. Aust filed Brookside Orchard, today's horseshoe of Brookside Drive, and in 1926 the Brookside Park map: 205 lots on the 70-acre hillside triangle bounded by Portola, Alpine and Corte Madera roads. These were sold as summer places. The developers advertised in San Francisco theaters and kept a sales office at Canyon and Portola roads. Water was the catch: the Brookside Water Company's 1927 well never kept up, and California Water Service eventually took over. By the early 1940s about 20 houses stood; the same history counted 156 houses on the triangle, many on lots larger than the 1926 map drew. Willowbrook Drive came later, in three units approved in 1960 and 1961, after a plan to make it a 60-foot, high-speed road toward Santa Clara County and the new Foothills Park was dropped.
The civic center has its own fault story. Former 1950s school buildings served as the town's civic center for about 30 years until a 2002 geologic study commissioned by the Town found them in a rupture zone of the San Andreas fault, while the northwest corner of the 11.2-acre site was free of active faulting. The Town tore the complex down and rebuilt on that corner: a library, Town Hall and community hall that reopened in September 2008 and earned LEED Platinum certification in 2009. The old Portola Valley School building at 775 Portola Road, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974, was kept.
streets and homes
The streets and the houses
The Brookside triangle is a tangle of narrow, winding streets. Corte Madera Road climbs from Portola Road to Alpine Road along the west side; Crescent Avenue, Canyon Drive, Cima Way, Echo Lane, Tan Oak Drive and Groveland Street fill the slope; Campo Road, Prado Court and Portola Green Circle sit near Portola Road, and Brookside Drive loops off Portola Road just west. The Town zones about 190 parcels here R-1/15M, with a median lot of about a third of an acre. The assessor's year-built field gives a median of 1957 and shows original cottages going back to the 1920s next to 1950s and 1960s ranch houses; most are recorded as one story. Portola Green Circle is a 1972 subdivision of 10 lots around a shared common area.
Willowbrook Drive is a different animal: 40 parcels of about an acre each running south from Portola Road along the foot of Windy Hill, built mostly in the 1960s. Every one of them is inside the state's Alquist-Priolo earthquake fault zone in the Town's parcel data, and 26 touch FEMA's AE flood zone along Corte Madera Creek. Around the Nathhorst Triangle, Nathhorst Avenue and Veronica Place hold one-acre lots, and Applewood Lane's houses date from 1987 to 1989.
Portola Road is the town's spine. Village Square (884 Portola Road) and a row of small office buildings sit across from the Town Center; a large private school campus fills the north side between Georgia Lane and Nathhorst Avenue; and estate parcels climb the Windy Hill side. Only about 13 of the houses inside our outline show a year built after 2000, so expect original houses, additions and the occasional full rebuild rather than a wall of new construction.
streets in portola road & town center
- Portola Road
- Alpine Road
- Brookside Drive
- Corte Madera Road
- Crescent Avenue
- Canyon Drive
- Cima Way
- Echo Lane
- Tan Oak Drive
- Groveland Street
- Campo Road
- Prado Court
- Portola Green Circle
- Willowbrook Drive
- Nathhorst Avenue
- Veronica Place
- Applewood Lane
parks and places
Parks, shops and landmarks near Portola Road & Town Center
- civic
Portola Valley Town Center
765 Portola Road: the San Mateo County Libraries branch, Town Hall and a community hall, with playing fields, courts and a playground on the 11-acre site. It reopened in September 2008 and was certified LEED Platinum in 2009.
- landmark
Historic Schoolhouse
The old Portola Valley School at 775 Portola Road, credited to architect LeBaron R. Olive and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. Town commissions meet here.
- open space
Windy Hill Open Space Preserve
A 1,414-acre Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District preserve. Its lower parking area is on Portola Road about 0.4 mile south of the Town Center, the Sausal Pond Loop is 1.6 miles, and a small roadside trailhead sits at Willowbrook Drive and Alpine Road.
- shopping
Nathhorst Triangle
Portola Road at Alpine Road: a grocery (Roberts Market, 4420 Alpine Road), hardware store, gas station and deli. The Woodside Fire Protection District's Portola Valley station is at 135 Portola Road.
- shopping
Village Square
A small center at 884 Portola Road, across from the Town Center; the Town's parcel data dates the building to 1956.
- school
Corte Madera School
Portola Valley School District's grades 4-8 campus at 4575 Alpine Road, just across Alpine Road from Tan Oak Drive. Being nearby does not mean being assigned; check the address.
schools and commute
School districts and getting around
School districts
The Town is in the Portola Valley School District, which runs Ormondale School (TK-3, 200 Shawnee Pass, about 0.6 mile straight-line from the Town Center) and Corte Madera School (grades 4-8, 4575 Alpine Road, at the south tip of the Brookside streets). High school is 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 2.6 miles straight-line from the Nathhorst Triangle, and the Sand Hill Road interchange about 2.8 miles straight-line from the Town Center by way of Portola Road.
- Caltrain: Palo Alto station is about 5.5 miles and Menlo Park station about 5.7 miles straight-line from the Town Center.
- Bus: SamTrans service here has been limited to school-oriented trips; check current schedules before counting on it.
- On foot and horseback: the Town's Portola Road Corridor Plan treats Portola Road and its parallel trail as one greenway, and Midpen points Windy Hill visitors from the Town Center to its lower trailhead on that trail.
- Walking distances inside the area are short: the Town Center to the Windy Hill lower lot is about 0.4 mile, and the Brookside streets to the Nathhorst Triangle about 0.3 mile (straight-line).
nerd notes
Buying or selling in Portola Road & Town Center: what we check
Buying here
- Check the fault map first. The Town's parcel data puts about 83 of the roughly 285 single-family parcels here, including all of Willowbrook Drive, inside the state's Alquist-Priolo earthquake fault zone. State rules keep new occupied buildings off an active trace and generally about 50 feet back, require a licensed geologist's report before permits, and require sellers to disclose the zone.
- Look at flood maps along Corte Madera Creek. About 37 parcels here touch FEMA's AE zone in the Town's data, most of them on Willowbrook Drive; ask for any elevation certificate and price flood insurance early.
- Fire hazard varies parcel by parcel. The Town's data lists about 100 parcels here as High, 129 as Moderate and 56 as non-wildland; confirm the current state map for the address, the Town's wildfire building rules and an insurance quote before you remove contingencies.
- In the Brookside streets, older cottages mean older systems. Ask about foundations, wiring and the permit history of past additions, and check setbacks and floor-area limits for an R-1/15M lot before you plan a second story.
- Confirm utilities. County maps put nearly every parcel here inside West Bay Sanitary District's service area, but confirm the house is actually on sewer and ask for sewer-lateral records; water is California Water Service. Portola Green Circle has a shared common area, so ask for any association documents.
Selling here
- Pull together any geologic or geotechnical reports, the fault-zone and flood disclosures, and finaled permits before listing; buyers here will ask.
- For a Brookside cottage, document the age and permits of each addition so buyers can tell original fabric from later work.
- If the house is on Willowbrook Drive, have flood-zone paperwork and any elevation certificate ready.
- Measure and list the walk to the Town Center, the Windy Hill trailhead and the Nathhorst Triangle shops; on this stretch of Portola Road, that is the selling point.
nerd noteCommissions are always negotiable, and we offer bundled services, so ask us what's included.
faq
Portola Road & Town Center questions, answered
Is Portola Road & Town Center an official neighborhood?
No. Portola Valley has no official neighborhood map. This is our grouping of the valley floor along Portola Road, from the Town Center to the Nathhorst Triangle, including the Brookside Park and Brookside Orchard streets and Willowbrook Drive.
Where are Canyon Drive, Tan Oak Drive and Willowbrook Drive?
On the Windy Hill side of Portola Road, in the triangle between Portola Road, Alpine Road and Corte Madera Road and just west of it, a few hundred yards north of Corte Madera School and Portola Valley Ranch. We cover them in this guide.
Is this area on the San Andreas fault?
Parts of it. The Town's parcel data puts about 83 single-family parcels here in the state's earthquake fault zone, including every lot on Willowbrook Drive, while much of the Brookside triangle is outside it. Check the parcel and ask for a geologic report.
What can I walk to?
The Town Center (library, Town Hall, fields), the Windy Hill lower trailhead about 0.4 mile south of it, Village Square and the Nathhorst Triangle's grocery and hardware store, depending on which end you live on.
Which schools serve it?
Portola Valley School District (Ormondale for TK-3 and Corte Madera for grades 4-8) and Sequoia Union High School District. Boundaries change, so check the exact address with each district.
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