Brewer Subdivision

Brewer Subdivision is a mix between affluent seclusion and commercial convenience. The neighborhood is situated within the rich, rolling hills of Hillsborough, but still the closest to downtown San Mateo and the many restaurants and shops that clump along El Camino Real. The area has everything from a top notch school system, to substantial properties, and from leafy sidewalks, to recently paved roads that curl off into the distance. In fact, it is situated just off the long, windy road of Crystal Springs Road and of which is made up of less than a dozen neighborhood streets.

Formerly mid-century California ranch-style homes, Brewer Subdivision residences have gone under a drastic facelift in the past 50 years. Most homes are beautiful two-story dream homes with leafy and private estate-like properties with plenty of room for a garden or front lawn (and usually perfectly landscaped). Moreover, its a community with luxury cars in the driveway and maybe a private tennis court in the backyard. And they can be sometimes obscured from view by the bushy residential aesthetics that fill the neighborhood. For the perspective resident, house values can be enormously steep. The average house listings vary between $2 to 3 million in price, which is somewhat normal to the many other Hillsborough residents.

For young families, Brewer Subdivision has a great public school system. It is the Crystal Springs School system that serves as the centerpiece of the exclusive Crystal Springs Upland School System. And the South Elementary School is just off the community’s borderlines, but is just one of the Hillsborough’s three acclaimed public elementary schools. And you’ll be glad to know that, Mills-Peninsula Health Services and the San Mateo Caltrain are both just a couple blocks east of the neighborhood’s limits.

For me, this neighborhood is all about Crystal Springs Upland High School, which is the school my daughter attended back when we lived in this area. Not to be confused with the Sacramento State college with the same acronym, CSUS is one of those amazing prep schools that makes its students feel as if they are already halfway in college.

Partly this has to do with the mansion in which the college is located—it feels like Mills College or a similar sort of college.
he white Corinthian columns that shoulder the entryway and the neo-classical building can feel a bit intimidating when students first arrive. (My daughter was certainly a little intimidated at first.) But the small student body (just 350 students) and the 6 to 1 student teacher ratio make this the kind of ideal learning environment ideally suited for drawing the most from your child and preparing him or her for the challenges of our highly competitive world.

My daughter certainly thrived at CSUS. Largely this is because they not only focus on academics but also emphasize the arts (dancing and music in my daughter’s case).

You are also surrounded by students who have for the most part had all the benefits of the best that education has to offer. So the environment itself is outstanding for learning.

Crystal Springs is definitely the main feature of this neighborhood, the campus and mansion being the largest structures in the Brewer Subdivision.

CSUS is not, however, the only school in Brewer Subdivision. South Hillsborough Elementary is also an outstanding school—as you would expect in such a wealthy community as Hillsborough.

Nor is the CSUS mansion, the only mansion in the Brewer Subdivision of Hillsborough. You can see the top of another mansion right by South Hillsborough Elementary—its top floor popping up above the high hedges that keep the long pool and rows of manicured trees private from probing eyes. If you are such a big fan of Downton Abbey that you want to live in what feels like a replica of the manor, you have found the location to do just that.

Of course, they aren’t all just mansions here. There some relatively regular sized homes by Hillsborough standards. These are not tiny hovels of course. These are large homes with multiple rooms. (As you probably know you won’t find any apartment buildings in Hillsborough because of city ordinance that all homes must be larger than 2500 feet. One of the ways they keep the riff-raff like us out.)

And in case you are wondering, on the low end a 3500 ft. Ranch style home here with 4 bedrooms and baths will run you just shy of $3 mil.

On the high end, you can find a 9000 ft. Italian Palladian style home with 6 bedrooms, pool, screening room, tennis court and all the usual amenities you would expect for close to $7 million.

Of course, those mansions I mention would considerably raise the high end if they ever went on sale.

One of the other draws of the neighborhood, is its proximity to Downtown San Mateo, which helps both for commuting purposes and for shopping. The more you get up into the Hillsborough hills the more of drag it becomes getting things done, I imagine.

Though, of course, if you are rich enough to live high up in the Hillsborough hills then it is doubtful that you worry too much about how much time it takes to drive down (or for your chauffeur to drive you down) to the supermarket.

Overall, one of my favorite neighborhoods in Hillsborough. I suppose, I wouldn’t mind living here with all the other snooty Hillsborough residents.