About Davis' West Davis

The most salient feature of Davis neighborhoods is how interconnected they are. The Davis planning department excels at weaving our greenbelts, or emerald necklace (to borrow a term from Cleveland, Ohio) throughout the distinct neighborhoods, making access by bike, foot, skateboard, scooter and in-line skates (my preference) a breeze. The core area (downtown) has no greenbelts but the street bikelanes downtown are top notch. Davis has more bicycles per capita than any city in the U.S. Kids can easily navigate the greenbelt bikepaths to the nearest schools and parks. We have six parks within a short bike ride of our house, and one quickly learns which is the shadiest (Village Park) before venturing out on a 103-degree July afternoon.

Davis is known for many things apart from its bikes, not the least of which is the infamous toad tunnel under Pole Line Road (the butt of late-night talk show humor) connecting a marsh with a popular breeding ground for toads adjacent to the post office. Supposedly, no toad ever survived the journey due to the excessive heat of the tunnel. Local HVAC contractor, Blakes, should have installed central air, I guess. Ribbit. Another bit of Davis trivia: a house on Madrid St. in the North Davis enclave of Covell Park was used to film Sorority Life, a popular MTV series. It's inconclusive whether that raised or lowered property values on the street at the time. So let's begin our journey there, in North Davis.

NORTH DAVIS

Its boundary line is simple enough, everything north of Covell Blvd. we call North Davis. Covell Park, a mature neighborhood with Spanish-named streets, features many mid-century modern home designs built by Streng Brothers in the 70's and early 80's, paralleling Eichler architecture of the Bay Area. Covell Park is situated close to the core area, with easy biking to the library, Davis Arts Center, Community Park and downtown venues.

Northstar is a newer community to the north of Covell Park with semi-custom and custom homes built in the late 80's and early 90's. The neighborhoods are joined by Northstar Park which features two popular bird ponds, (popular to our feathered friends, as well as birders). There is a nice kiddie playground filled with sand near one of the ponds, and a well-manicured soccer field, to boot. Senda Nueva is another smaller North Davis development to the west of Covell Park, just a stone's throw from The Marketplace shopping with Safeway, Peet's Coffee, Jamba Juice, Dos Coyotes Border Cafe, et al.

Hopping east over F Street and the railroad tracks is the site of the former Hunt-Wesson tomato canning plant, which is now proposed by Lewis Homes as the Cannery Park neighborhood. While the plant operated, trucks brimming with tomatoes would parade down Covell Blvd. To the north and east of the Hunt-Wesson site lies unincorporated farmland, the site of a recent and contentious battle between the developers of the proposed Covell Village neighborhood and its opponents. The project was supported by Davis city council members, with the exception of mayor Sue Greenwald, and the decision to go forward was placed on the ballot as Measure X. The measure was subsequently defeated by the electorate with 60% opposed.

To the east of Pole Line Road and north of Covell Blvd. is the Green Meadows subdivision comprised mostly of attached, two-story, townhouse-stye homes with small yards. The popular Davis Athletic Club is on Picasso Ave. Moving to the north is La Buena Vida, aka the McKeon Condos. With prices hovering in the mid $200,000s, the McKeons are the most affordable homes in Davis. In the spring and summer of '05, at the peak of the market when the inventory of condos for sale was very tight, some units were fetching over $300,000, but since then, prices have tumbled over 20%. Between '98 and '05, the rising tide of price appreciation in Davis lifted all boats equally, from McKeons to luxurious custom homes, but condo prices have fallen more steeply than single-family residences in the ensuing years.

Roughly a decade ago, the large Wildhorse community was developed to the north and west of Green Meadows and McKeons. Wildhorse features a hilly, eponymous golf course whose inhabitants include burrowing owls. If you take a brief walk along the path to the east of Rockwell Court just before sunset, you'll discover these protected birds standing guard over the abandoned squirrel holes they call home. A few years ago, I golfed in a Kiwanis charity tournament, and hopefully no owls were lost due to my errant hooks and slices.

With the exception of custom and semi-custom properties along Rockwell Court built by a variety of local contractors, the Wildhorse homes were built by production builders including Meritage, Morrison, Greystone, Forecast and Ryland. Many of the homes have scenic views of the course, or views of the horse ranch to the east of Caravaggio Drive. On any given Saturday, Sandy Motley Park and Nugget Field adjacent to Pole Line Road are teeming with kids playing soccer. A bike tunnel under Covell Blvd. connecting Wildhorse with East Davis is currently under construction.

WEST DAVIS

If you're west of Highway 113, welcome to West Davis, home to the following communities: Stonegate, Village Homes, West Manor, Westwood, Aspen and Evergreen. Stonegate is the furthest west, so we'll begin there. Stonegate has it's own Country Club, sans golf course. Its pride and joy is the man-made lake of the same name. At night the twinkling lights reflecting onto the water from the lakefront homes are a beautiful sight. The club features tennis courts, a soccer field, a fitness room, outdoor swimming pools and a community center. Sailboats and canoes are available for use, too. Stonegate was built over a span of many decades, so the established homes on the southside near Russell Blvd. share little with the newer homes of the 80's on the north end. Stonegate includes two rather quiet condo developments, Lakeside Greens, and Woods Circle.

Village Homes is a world reknowned passive solar neighborhood built on a former tomato field. Built in the late 70's, the developers, young Michael, later to become mayor, and Judy Corbett fought the city planners on a number of issues, from streets perceived to be too narrow for emergency vehicles (in an attempt to reduce summer temperatures with less pavement), to lack of storm drains, (the common back yards dip into swales to catch storm runoff). Supposedly, the year after Village Homes was completed, much of West Davis flooded with the exception of Village Homes. The Village has been visited over the years by a few traveling dignitaries, Rosalyn Carter and Francois Mitterand to name a few. Village Homes is replete with orchards, community gardens, common lawns and an outdoor swimming pool. Far from cookie-cutter production, no home is replicated more than once in the neighborhood, and in an attempt to de-emphasize the auto, most homes were built without garages.

The West Manor neighborhood, sandwiched between Village Homes and Stonegate, features homes built by Stanley Davis in the 70's. The street names are rivers of the world, such as Tiber, Feather and Ganges (Eel Avenue and Eel Place are peculiar choices). West Manor Park is surprisingly large, due to the fact that it's rather hidden from any main street. It features tennis and basketball courts, a playground, a picnic area, an athletic field and a roller hockey ring. The West Davis pond, another great birding spot, lies to the northeast of the neighborhood.

East of West Manor is Westwood, a collection of larger homes on spacious lots, built in the 70's on streets named for U.S. presidents - Buchanan, Eisenhower, Fillmore and the like. The neighborhood's southern boundary is Russell Blvd. and its scenic black walnut tree-lined bikepath which connects to the UCD campus. A new mixed-use UC Davis community, West Village, is planned for the farmland south of Russell and west of Highway 113.

The newer Evergreen neighborhood lies at the northeast corner of West Davis, just west of Hwy 113 and south of Covell Blvd., and traversed by Shasta Drive. The majority of homes have a Mediterranean style of exterior with stucco walls and tile roofs. Arroyo Pool, with its highly popular water slide, and Arroyo Park are at the southern edge of the community. Patwin Elementary sits west of the pool. The eastern portion of Evergreen is within the Willett Elementary boundary line and there's a most convenient bike and pedestrian bridge over Highway 113 leading to the school and adjacent park.

Tucked to the west of Evergreen is the Aspen Neighborhood which includes Muir Commons, "the first cohousing community newly constructed in the United States," according to its website. The remainder of Aspen is mostly larger, custom and semi-custom homes on cul-de-sacs bordering either a greenbelt, or the West Davis pond, nice choices to have.