Broadmoor-Northridge

Broadmoor-Northridge covers 77.3 acres off Canyon Rim Road, and eight of the nine streets inside it carry Spanish names: Calle Del Norte, Paseo Cancion, Paseo Del Norte, Paseo Fiesta, Paseo Real, Paseo Serena, Via Arboles and Via Estrada, with Canyon Rim itself the ninth, 1.8 miles in all. The city records 245 addresses on 230 parcels, every one detached single family, with a median lot of 11,000 square feet. The general plan designates the whole boundary Residential Low at up to 6.5 homes to the acre, over zoning that sets a 5,000 square foot minimum lot.

The single-story house is the rule here rather than the exception: of the 226 buildings the city's footprint layer measures, 184 are single-story and only 42 are two-story, at a median 2,112 square feet of ground floor. That ratio is the reverse of almost every other community in Anaheim Hills. Forty-four of the 230 parcels carry a pool. The boundary falls wholly in ZIP 92807 and in flood zone X. Broadmoor-Northridge sits in Orange Unified School District and feeds Canyon High.

The Broadmoor half of this neighborhood's name belongs to a builder. Richard B. Smith started Broadmoor Homes in the late 1950s after the Naval Air Corps and a spell in logging, and over thirty one years the company put up more than six thousand homes and lots across the Irvine Ranch, San Diego County, the San Francisco Peninsula and Contra Costa. Professional Builder made him builder of the year in 1979. He sold Broadmoor to Genstar in 1973, the same year the first houses went up on this hillside.

The street names are Spanish and they are cheerful about it. Paseo Cancion is the walk of song, Paseo Fiesta the walk of the party, Paseo Serena the calm one and Paseo Real the royal one. Via Arboles is the way of the trees, and Calle del Norte and Paseo del Norte simply point north. The houses went up between 1973 and 1979 with 1974 the median year, on lots of about eleven thousand square feet, and forty four of the two hundred and forty five have a pool. Fairmont Park sits at the top of Canyon Rim Road at the edge of the boundary.