Overview
About Spyglass Ridge
Spyglass Ridge covers 12.5 acres on the Buck Gully rim and holds 42 addresses on 42 parcels, one to a lot. It is gated, and all 0.43 miles of street inside the footprint are recorded as private by the city. Its six streets are almost all circles: Reef View Circle, Harbor Crest Circle, Castle Cove Circle, Bay Cliff Circle and Sea Bell Circle, with Ocean Birch Drive running between them.
Every acre is zoned R-1-6000 for single unit housing on a 6,000 square foot minimum lot, and the median parcel measures 0.258 acres, second only to Spyglass Hill above it among the twenty-four boundaries in this district. The 299.84 acre Upper Buck Gully open space adjoins the boundary directly, and the 2025 state fire hazard map rates the entire 12.5 acres Very High. None of the ground sits inside the Coastal Zone. Harbor View Elementary serves the community and enrolled 344 students on the 2024-25 federal count. For the city's own administration the city places it in evacuation zone 48, park service area 11, census tract 626.42.
View available homes in Spyglass RidgeHistory
How Spyglass Ridge was built
The hills behind Corona del Mar stayed Irvine Ranch land long after the village on the flower streets was finished. Building climbed them a slope at a time from 1959, and by the turn of the 1970s it had reached the rim above Buck Gully. Spyglass Ridge was laid out there in 1971, a year before the larger Spyglass Hill community went in on the ridge above it, and the two have been read as one place ever since even though they were built and are still governed separately.
It is a small and unusually uniform neighborhood. The county carries a construction year for 41 homes inside the boundary and every one of them reads 1971, so the whole enclave was finished in a single season. Its six streets are almost all circles, Reef View, Harbor Crest, Castle Cove, Bay Cliff and Sea Bell, with Ocean Birch Drive running between them, and all of them are private behind a gate off San Joaquin Hills Road.
By the Numbers
Spyglass Ridge by the numbers
Lifestyle
The Spyglass Ridge lifestyle
Schools
Schools serving Spyglass Ridge
The Newport-Mesa Unified locator was queried at 13 real addresses inside this boundary and returned Harbor View Elementary at every one of them. That campus teaches kindergarten through sixth grade at 900 Goldenrod Avenue and enrolled 344 students on the 2024-25 federal count. The secondary grades are taught at 2101 Eastbluff Drive, which the district names as both Corona del Mar Middle School and Corona del Mar High School and which the federal directory records as one campus of 2,106 students across grades 7 to 12.
7-12 · 2,106 students
K-6 · 344 students
FAQs
Common questions about Spyglass Ridge
Is Spyglass Ridge gated?
Yes. The city register records it as gated and all 0.43 miles of street inside the footprint appear on the city private streets layer.
What is the fire hazard rating?
The 2025 state fire hazard severity map rates the whole 12.5 acres Very High. The boundary runs along the Buck Gully rim. The register draws the association as two lot polygons covering 12.5 acres. Closing the street rights of way between them gives a footprint of 15.8 acres, which is the shape drawn on the district map.
When was it built?
In 1971. Tract 7247 was recorded on April 22 of that year and all 41 county dated parcels inside the boundary read 1971.
Is Spyglass Ridge part of Spyglass Hill?
They are separate associations on the city register. The two share a surveyor, William J. Frost, and sit on the same ridge, but Spyglass Hill covers 112.3 acres and is not gated while Spyglass Ridge covers 12.5 acres and is.
Which schools serve it?
Harbor View Elementary, then Corona del Mar Middle and Corona del Mar High, at all 13 addresses tested inside the boundary. Spyglass Hill above it feeds Abraham Lincoln Elementary instead. The city bikeway layer runs 0.05 miles inside the footprint.