Piedmont Hills

Dropping down along the southern end of Oakland Avenue, the Piedmont Hills neighborhood is a web of gently slopes hillside streets with an eclectic mix of older, beautifully maintained homes including everything from Mission Revival to Craftsman styles. These are mostly not sprawling manors—the plots here are much more modest in terms of size—but they make such lovely use of the topography that an architecture student could spend a year here and learn as much about twentieth century architectural styles as in any set of graduate seminars.

It is the little touches that really draw you into this neighborhood—the way, for example that a hedge might be used to separate neighboring driveways, or how two Mission Style homes might look like mirror images of one another with garages placed jowl to jowl and stairs winding up ivy covered slopes to the front door in parallel. Each house in this neighborhood is a new solution to the problem and opportunity of space and incline. All in all, the beautiful irregularity of the neighborhood is its defining characteristic.

At the southeast edge of the neighborhood, you find the Davie Stadium tennis courts, which are perfectly located in a valley so that the wind is blocked out. There is an hourly fee for using the courts, but you will find that rarely is there an open court on the week end because of the beautiful location and ideal playing conditions. At the northern end of the neighborhood by Piedmont High School is Piedmont Park, a woodsy oasis at the heart of Piedmont. It is not a huge sprawling park but makes for a great place to take a walk and take in the tall trees.

You can also drop down to the Grand Lake Theater and the Lake Merritt area in just minutes.

Overall this is great neighborhood, just far enough away from the action to give you piece of mind, but close enough that you can drop down into at a moment’s notice.