Alice Ln, Orinda

The Alice neighborhood hangs off Rheem Blvd. along Orinda’s border with Moraga and Lafayette. Affluent like most every neighborhood in Orinda, Alice sits atop a leafy elevated hill that makes you feel as if you are hours away from the stresses of city of living even though you could be in San Francisco in 45 minutes on most days.

There are lots of pine trees and homes that look like they could fit in equally well near Lake Tahoe. Homes here have large porches that look out over what seems largely like forest but is actually the other Lafayette homes cloaked by the tree tops. The homes here are fairly big, the majority having pools and averaging close to a million dollars each. This is one of the newer areas in Orinda with a substantial portion of the structures having been built after 1960.

One really nice thing about the location is that you are centrally located. If you want to catch a movie, for example, you can drop south down Rheem Blvd. to the Rheem Theatre in Moraga. Or, if you don’t like your selection there you can go north, hang a left at Glorietta and be at the Orinda Theatre in about 10 minutes. Or you can hit the Park Theatre in Lafayette in 15 minutes (though I think the Park Theatre may be closed). The point, however is that the Alice neighborhood is the heart of the Lamorinda area, just about equidistant from all areas in these three sister cities, while remaining itself nicely tucked away deep in residential area—few neighborhoods make you feel so sheltered from worries of big city.

There are also some unusual features in the area beyond the pleasant alpine feel. There is, for example, a kind of European style traffic circle at the corner of Donald and Hall. Just to the east of the neighborhood are the hills leading down to the Lafayette Reservoir, which Lamorinda Residents enjoy as a pleasant recreation area. The circling trail to the reservoir is a popular place for strolls and jogging (markers along the trail help you keep track of how far you have gone and how far you have to go). One of the reservoir trails, Rim Trail, comes not too far from the homes of Alice.

If you want to find out more about Rim Trail, here is a good article from Bay Area Hiker:

http://www.bahiker.com/eastbayhikes/lafres.html

There are also some unusual homes here.