Westwood Park

This clean and neat neighborhood seems to have taken a page from its more hoity-toity neighbor, Ingleside Terrace, especially in the racetrack-shape of its streets. The curved and rounded drives and avenues are about the only similarities between the two areas, however. While both neighborhoods grew out of the housing boom after the 1906 earthquake and fire, they developed along different lines, with Westwood Park marketed to “the family of average means”—despite its grandiose entry gates at Miramar and Monterey. This “down-scaling” resulted in the district’s modest bungalows (which could be purchased for $35 a month in the 1920s when they were built), rather than the mini-mansions and anything-goes architecture of Ingleside Terrace.

Today, the 700 or so dwellings in Westwood Park have taken a prominent place as San Francisco’s only intact collection of nearly all the bungalow styles of the early 20th century. Though the city is customarily touted for its preponderance of Victorian and Edwardian residences, Westwood Park is the only place where you can see example after example of Mission, Craftsman, Prairie, Colonial Revival, English Cottage and Spanish Revival bungalows, all with their own distinct detailing, as architect Charles F. Strothoff intended. Strothoff designed 500 of the houses here, most of them built from 1918 through 1923. Some of the architectural elements (at the time considered standard in an average home) include: oak floors with mahogany trim, built-in dining room buffets, wainscoting, French doors with beveled glass, cove ceilings, tiled fireplaces, sunrooms and multiple windows throughout. On the exterior, tile roofs were de rigueur, as were enclosed entryways and columned porches. And nearly every house has its own yard, front and back.The unique character of the neighborhood prompted the Westwood Park Association, formed in 1917 and still active today, to work with area residents in the last decades to ensure that this enclave of historic bungalows would be preserved by becoming San Francisco’s first residential character district.

The area’s 3,000 or so residents are, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, a diverse group, composed as follows: 55 percent white, 30 percent Asian, 5 percent African American, and the remaining 10 percent of some other race or a mix of two or more races. The family of “average means” envisioned when the neighborhood was built has evolved over the last 80 years into one of “upper middle class” standing, the median annual household income hovering at $90,000. Nearly everyone (85 percent) owns his or her home.

As with the other neighborhoods fronting Ocean Avenue, the few stores Westwood Park claims are lined up along this diagonal thoroughfare—i.e., Westwood Beauty Supply, a Walgreens, and a few boutiques (including one of the city’s last remaining hat shops). For groceries, residents generally travel outside the neighborhood: a short walk to the Safeway on Monterey Boulevard in next-door Sunnyside or a one-mile drive to Trader Joe’s in Stonestown. Though the stretch of Ocean Avenue adjacent to Westwood Park is fairly vibrant (with a coffeehouse, a couple of restaurants—including one for Chinese food and an Italian sandwich shop—a gas station/garage, and a newly built branch of the public library), the avenue’s commercial scene suffers from a surfeit of tired storefronts and businesses in need of some sprucing up, beyond the city’s recent replacement of the old streetlights with vintage reproductions.

Public transportation options skirt the neighborhood rather than run directly through it, though that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The K streetcar runs along Ocean Avenue, providing access to points in other neighborhoods west of Twin Peaks before trekking downtown via the subway tunnel at West Portal. The No. 23 bus runs along Monterey Avenue before heading west to the Pacific Ocean or east to the Bayview District. The No. 43 likewise runs north and south along Phelan Avenue to both the Crocker/Amazon neighborhood to the south as well as the Presidio to the north. The Balboa Park station of BART is a few blocks away, giving a fast option to downtown, the East Bay, and SFO.

Although parking is generally fairly easy throughout the neighborhood, on-street spots fill up on weekdays in the blocks around the City College Campus. That’s why the San Francisco Department of Parking and Traffic issues “V” parking permits to residents in the southern half of the neighborhood, enabling them to ignore the areas marked with hourly limits.

Westwood Park has no public schools within its borders, although one Catholic high school lies at its eastern edge: Riordan High, an all-boys 9-12 with a college-prep curriculum and a strong athletics program. Adjacent neighborhoods host the area’s public schools, such as Aptos Middle School, which got a 7 out of 10 rating by GreatSchools, in Balboa Terrace.

Crime in the area, especially along the residential streets, is light and of the relatively unserious disturbing the peace/vandalism variety, according to San Francisco Police Department stats, with the more serious car break-in or vehicle theft occurring occasionally as well (though not at the fast pace as elsewhere in San Francisco). But along the commercial corridor of Ocean Avenue, there are a small number of robberies and assaults in any three-month period. Otherwise, there is little violence, and there have been no homicides reported in the last three years.

Real estate in Westwood Park has rebounded modestly from the slump of the recent downturn, registering an 18 percent increase in home prices from late 2009 to late 2010. Though there are never a lot of homes for sale in any given period, they generally sell from $670,000 for a modest two-bedroom, one bath on Plymouth Avenue to $899,000 for a two-story, four-bed/four-bath home on Miramar. Rentals are not any more plentiful than homes for sale, and they are always single-family homes. A three-bedroom, one-bathroom house near Riordan High recently listed for $2,400 a month, while a five bedroom/four-bathroom split level house was asking $8,000 a month.

Westwood Park, though offering no exclusive amenities, does retain its early 20th century charm, and that, coupled with the quiet streets, active neighborhood association, and involved parents’ group, makes this an ideal location to raise a family—if you can get your hands on one of those historic bungalows.