Crestmont

This is a tiny hillside pocket neighborhood that you can easily miss if you are zooming by on the Earl Warren Highway. There are around 1,000 people who live here.

The majority of the neighborhood is made up of long, fairly straight and wide hillside streets. Most are on grades. They tend not to have many trees, which clears the way for the great bay views the homes have here. Most of the homes are Ranch Homes—over a third of them date to the fifties, and you will even find some garage doors with those brown diamond shapes on them that used to just scream SUBARBS! way back when. They are fairly expensive, around $800k and there are few renters in this area.

Near the freeway, you will find some newer construction—some gated communities of the kinds you might find in Orange County. Clay-tiled deals with no public access.

There is a supermarket and shopping center near the freeway as well that will give hillside residents all their basics. They get a fair number of Piedmont residents there as well.

On the southern end of the neighborhood is Carl Munck Elementary School (right next to Pinto Ranch Park). It is a good school with average test scores. Parents are involved, and teachers are dedicated by all accounts. Some parents have found the principle difficult to get along with, but overall most parents seem happy with the school.

Finally, one of the great aspects of this hillside neighborhood is its diversity. According to the 2000 census, about half are white, a quarter Asian and a fifth black. This makes the educational and cultural environment of the community richer than in some other upscale communities where the kids are likely to grow up oblivious to racial and cultural differences.