Rancho San Miguel, Walnut Creek

In the mid-1950s this was still open country of orchards and horse pasture. In November 1954, Joseph Eichler presented a master plan for 563 housing lots on 176 acres next to Ygnacio Valley Road, and building took more than four years. Most of the Eichlers were designed by the architecture firm Anshen & Allen, with a young architect named Charles Dorsett helping design the neighborhood. According to the neighborhood's homeowners association, more than 350 Eichlers were built and sold here, alongside about 150 homes by the builders Jordan & Reed. The association itself was incorporated in 1956, while the tract was still going up.

Rancho San Miguel was part of a boom that changed Walnut Creek completely. The city had about 2,400 residents in 1950, and new tracts like this one filled the valley within a decade.

Rancho San Miguel sits where two school districts meet. Walnut Acres Elementary School on Cerezo Drive and Foothill Middle School on Cedro Lane are in the Mt. Diablo Unified School District, and Indian Valley Elementary School on Marshall Drive is in the Walnut Creek School District. Northgate High School is on Castle Rock Road. Depending on the address, a home may be in either district, so check the district boundary map for any address you're considering. The Walnut Creek page lists the public and private schools across the city.

Heather Farm Park, close by, has a lake, sports fields, open lawns, and the Clarke Memorial Swim Center, home of two of Walnut Creek's best-known youth clubs: the Walnut Creek Aquanuts, an artistic swimming club with 17 Olympians among its alumni, and the Walnut Creek Aquabears, a year-round competitive swim team. The Ruth Bancroft Garden, the first garden in the country preserved by the Garden Conservancy, is a short drive away on Bancroft Road. Shell Ridge Open Space, part of the city's protected ridgelines, rises to the south with miles of trails.

Walnut Creek has no extra city transfer tax, only Contra Costa County's. There's no ordinance requiring a sewer lateral certificate in Walnut Creek, however a sewer lateral inspection is recommended. Some streets near the open space may fall in a High fire hazard severity zone on the state's map, so check the address; a home in a High zone adds a routine defensible space inspection at sale. For an Eichler, marketing to buyers who know and love the design matters. My Walnut Creek home selling page explains the steps.

Homeowners move on for all kinds of reasons including (but not limited to): upsizing to a second or third home, divorce, relocating for work, or the passing of a family member.

Tanja Odzak is a Top East Bay Realtor with eXp Realty, helping buyers and sellers in Walnut Creek and across the East Bay. Rancho San Miguel is a mid-century neighborhood in Walnut Creek, built from 1955 to 1958 by Joseph Eichler, the developer whose post-and-beam, glass-walled homes became a California design landmark. It was his first major project in the East Bay, and it still has one of the largest groups of Eichler homes in Contra Costa County, mixed with traditional ranch houses.