Mary Ann Teixeira, REALTOR, SRES, GREEN

How often does the opportunity for the Best Schools arrive? In this new listing in a quiet, private, 20 unit building, many potential buyers are finding the opportunity.

Located on the West Side of El Camino Real, this 2 bedroom 2 bathroom condominium www.Madison110.com

Located in the Baywood School District with Baywood Elementary, Borel Middle School, and the acclaimed Aragon High School, all rated amongst the best schools in San Mateo.

Of the 20 units in the building, all are owner-occupied but three. Two of the three rented are rented to families with children whom live there specifically for the best schools.

Offered at $554,000.

Millbrae, California , a Great Place for Real Estate

Millbrae features all the classic composites of the typical peninsula town: sunny most days, good public schools, commuter access and the classic downtown ‘main street', with restaurants and shopping.

The majority of its downtown restaurants are of Asian cuisine; whether it be Dim Sum, Vietnamese or Japanese. Try Zen Bistro for cool décor, happy hour, and a central location on the main street of Broadway. Further down the block on Broadway you will find the local cobbler, the independent grocer, and variety of locally owned businesses, all lending to the feeling of small-town America.

The lovely tree-lined streets in lower Millbrae Highlands are filled with classic homes originally built in the late 1930's through the late 1950's. As a 1939 marketing brochure for the area claims, the Highlands are ‘your place in the Sunshine'

Many of these original homes have been renovated, expanded, and updated to accommodate modern families while retaining their original character. Highly acclaimed for its public schools, this desirable area of Millbrae Highlands is dotted with top rate schools; Mills High School,(with API score of 837), Taylor Middle Schools (API 839), and Meadows Elementary (API 840).

Millbrae offers small town hominess, classic residential neighborhoods, great schools, and easy commutes to the greater Bay Area via BART, SAMTRANS or freeways.

Visit the San Mateo Home Garden and Design Show January 29-30, 2009

San Mateo Park Mysteries and History

Imagine. Another beautiful peninsula spring day. Radiant blue skies host puffy wisps of clouds. Verdant green rolling hills are topped with flowering trees, and California poppies flop about in a light breeze.

Except it’s May 1902.

San Mateans pass sedate Sunday afternoons watching trotters cruise the circular race race track at the Clark Dairy’s horse field. Horse and buggy riders scurry down the tree-lined El Camino streets, eager to get home from church to Sunday supper.

The Sunday newspaper announces another turn-century-land deal with the headlines:

SAN MATEO PARK… Very Desirable… AT AUCTION — 97 VILLA LOTS… to be held May 10, 1902

Auction to be held at the platform at Liberty Hall, 2nd and B Streets. Southern Pacific railroad will run three special excursion trains from San Francisco for 60 cents round trip. The first one-hundred ticket buyers will be entitled to a free lunch at the elegant Union Hotel on 3rd and Baldwin in downtown San Mateo.

The area up for auction was modern day San Mateo Park. Mr. Clark had been deeded the 200 acre parcel for legal work he completed helping William Howard convince the U.S. Land Commission of Howard’s right to the title of 6,000 acres of land granted to him by the last Mexican governor of California, Pio Pico. Howard’s original parcel included Hillsborough, Burlingame and San Mateo Park.

Howard paid a mere $54,757.70 for the entire land grant. Clark was hoping to get a lot more.
The terms of the auction were:

• One-third cash
• A 10% deposit at the fall of the hammer
• An interest rate 7, or 5 if the purchaser accepted a bond for the deed
• The balance was due in one or two years
• The principal and interest were payable in United States gold coin

The nearly 700 people who arrived for tours of the property that was to become San Mateo Park were delighted with the already 20 -foot tall trees and smitten with the bright green circles and oval planted beds. A Scottish gardener named John McLaren had worked with Howard to establish islands planted with trees representing separate countries. (Yes, this is the John McLaren who also transformed hills of sand to the now-acclaimed Golden Gate Park in San Francisco). Many of these landscape-designed islands within San Mateo Park provided prospective buyers that day with shade.

After tramping the turf and sighting the lot lines, prospective buyers climbed back into the rigs and headed downtown. Following a sumptuous lunch, the convivial crowd convened around the auctioneer J.P Baldwin.Mr. Baldwin took the platform and promptly put on the block what was declared to be “The Best Lot in San Mateo Park.”

After spirited bidding, H.H. Lynch, superintendent of construction of the United Railroads of San Francisco, demonstrated his faith in San Mateo Park by upping the bids to $1,825.

On that May day in 1902, 53 lots were sold, far short of the 97 “Cracker Jack Villa Lots” that were offered for sale.
The combined sales figures of those 53 lots ran to $51,350, nearly $1000 per lot. The lowest priced lot went for $755. As of today, November 21st, 2009, there are 4 single family homes on the market, the average asking price is $1,870,750, and the average lot size of those 4 homes is 9,250 square feet.

Most buyers would be delighted with that selling price in San Mateo Park today.

The Harems Have Arrived In San Mateo County!

It all began in December, and will continue in full swing through Mid-March. This year, just like every year since the first sighting in 1955, a couple thousand females, the harem, make their way to the secluded beach of Ano Nuevo in San Mateo County to birth their offspring.

Just a short drive down the coast, (about 90 minutes from San Mateo), Año Nuevo State Park in southern San Mateo County, is the location of the largest breeding colony in the world for the northern elephant seal on the mainland. This magnificent mammal is large; males average fourteen feet long and can weigh up to 2 1/2 tons, noisy; you can sometimes hear their barking on the hiking trail miles before you reach the beach, and possessive; the struggle between alpha males and ‘wanna-bes’ can be violent.

San Mateo County's Ano Nuevo State Park conducts daily tours December through March, reservations are required. A moderate trail will deliver you to an outlook over the beach where you can observe the majesty in action. This is a spectacle to behold; the beach is littered with massive grey-brown bodies.

A visit to the park now, will likely offer the opportunity see pups. Weighing in at 75 pound s at birth, and usually one pup per female, they are nursed for 25 to 28 days, and can grow up to 250-350 pounds in less than a month!

And then the breeding begins. Females come into season and mate about 3 weeks after giving birth. She may mate several times before returning to sea, and then abruptly wean her pup by an immediate departure to sea. Should you choose to visit later, in mid-March, most of the adult seals are gone, leaving the only pups on the beach.

In late December, the females begin to arrive and form "harems" on the beaches of the reserve. Much smaller than the males, they average ten to twelve feet in length and weight 1,200 to 2,000 pounds. Three to six days after she arrives, the femael gives birth to the pup that was conceived the previous year. Normally, only one pup is born to each female and she nurses for 25 to 28 days.