Overview
About Applause
Applause covers 12.7 acres, the smallest of the fifty Aliso Viejo communities measured for this site, and holds 186 addresses on a single mapped parcel. It carries nine street names on that ground, one for every twenty addresses: Bravo, Encore, Front Row, Matinee, Opera, Orchestra, Ovation, Overture and Theatre. The zoning is Residential Medium Density, where the municipal code allows up to 18 units to the gross acre; the measured figure is 15 addresses to the acre.
Woodfield Park is 601 feet from the boundary, 22.9 acres with a lighted baseball field, a concession stand, hiking trails, a restroom and a drinking fountain. Aliso and Wood Canyons Wilderness Park begins 680 feet away, Grand Park at 7.9 acres is 988 feet off and Springdale Park at 5.8 acres 1,077 feet. Capistrano Unified's own address locator assigns this ground to Wood Canyon Elementary for TK through grade 5, then Don Juan Avila Middle and Aliso Niguel High.
View available homes in ApplauseHistory
How Applause was built
Every street in Applause is a word from the theater. Overture opens, Orchestra and Front Row seat you, Matinee and Opera name the show, and Encore, Ovation and Bravo end it, with Theatre Lane running through the middle. Nine streets, one joke, held all the way through, on 12.7 acres holding 186 homes. It is the sort of naming scheme a developer commits to in a single afternoon and a neighborhood then lives with for thirty five years.
Applause was built in 1990, two story plans with cathedral ceilings on the ocean side of the freeway. What makes the address unusual is what sits beside it: Woodfield Park is about 600 feet away and the Aliso and Wood Canyons Wilderness Park begins about 680 feet away, 4,500 acres of old growth oak and sycamore with roughly thirty miles of trails, opened in 1990, the same year the homes went up.
By the Numbers
Applause by the numbers
Lifestyle
The Applause lifestyle
Schools
Schools serving Applause
Capistrano Unified serves Applause, and the district's own address locator returns one set of campuses across the boundary: Wood Canyon Elementary for TK through grade 5, then Don Juan Avila Middle and Aliso Niguel High. Wood Canyon is not among the six campuses nearest this boundary at all, which is why distance does not settle the question here. The tiles below carry federal enrollment counts and distances measured from the city's published boundary. Confirm the campus for a specific address with the district before it matters to an offer.
9-12 · 2,563 students
6-8 · 803 students
6-8 · 863 students
K-5 · 569 students
K-5 · 672 students
K-5 · 533 students
FAQs
Common questions about Applause
How big is Applause?
Measured against the boundary the City of Aliso Viejo publishes, Applause covers 12.7 acres, the smallest of the fifty Aliso Viejo communities measured for this site. The city's address layer records 186 addresses inside it, all on a single mapped parcel.
Which schools serve Applause?
Capistrano Unified's own address locator returns Wood Canyon Elementary for TK through grade 5, then Don Juan Avila Middle and Aliso Niguel High, and it returns the same three at every interior point across the boundary. Wood Canyon Elementary enrolled 425 students on the 2024-25 federal count, Don Juan Avila Middle 863 and Aliso Niguel High 2,563.
What are the streets named for?
All nine are named for the theater: Bravo, Encore, Front Row, Matinee, Opera, Orchestra, Ovation, Overture and Theatre. Nine street names over 12.7 acres works out to one for every twenty addresses the city records.
When was Applause subdivided?
Tract 13635 was recorded on 27 April 1989 and covers the whole of the boundary on its own. Four of these fifty communities came out of the five maps Jan M. Fuller had recorded that single day. A recorded map dates the subdivision rather than the buildings on it.
How close is the open space?
Aliso and Wood Canyons Wilderness Park begins 680 feet from the boundary. OC Parks runs it across roughly 4,500 acres with more than 30 miles of official trails and two year round streams, and it is designated a wildlife sanctuary. Woodfield Park at 22.9 acres is nearer still at 601 feet, with a lighted baseball field, a concession stand and hiking trails.