Overview
About Top of the World
Top of the World sits on the ridge above the city, reached by Temple Hills Drive and laid out along Alta Laguna Boulevard, Mountain View Drive and Hillview Drive. Its side streets carry Alpine names, Bern, Bonn, Zell, Tyrol, Chillon, Cresta and Chateau among them. The city draws it as evacuation zone 19 and records 691 households inside it. Across 240 acres the assessor counts 585 parcels on thirty-one named streets, and the city zones 582 of its 591 parcels R1, the purest single-family zoning of any named area in Laguna Beach.
Top of the World Elementary stands inside the boundary at 21601 Treetop Lane, one of four Laguna Beach Unified campuses serving 2,291 students, and its pupils go on to Thurston Middle and Laguna Beach High. Twenty-six acres inside the line are open space preserve and ten more belong to Aliso and Wood Canyons Wilderness Park, with a third of a mile of city trail crossing the ridge in eight public segments.
View available homes in Top of the WorldHistory
How Top of the World was built
The name is literal. Alta Laguna Park sits at the top of this neighborhood on Temple Hill, the second highest peak in the San Joaquin Hills at about 1,038 feet, and on a clear day the view takes in most of Orange County, the Saddleback valley and the ocean. The city’s Top of the World reservoir is in a tank under the park, and the park is the trailhead into Aliso and Wood Canyons Wilderness Park.
The hill got its name from Joseph S. Thurston, who bought the ground from George Rogers in 1919 and called it Temple Hills, for the inspiration and spiritual strength he found in the place. Thurston was raised on his family’s Aliso Canyon homestead, 152 acres taken up in 1871, and in 1925 he gave acreage at the top of the hills for a park. The neighborhood below the summit came much later: M. W. Finley recorded the first tract here in 1959 and four more by 1963, and roughly three quarters of the dated houses inside the boundary went up in the 1960s.
By the Numbers
Top of the World by the numbers
Lifestyle
The Top of the World lifestyle
The trailhead at Alta Laguna Park opens into Aliso and Wood Canyons Wilderness Park, which OC Parks puts at approximately 4,500 acres of wilderness and natural open space with more than 30 miles of official trails for hiking, biking and horses.
OC Parks records the canyons as holding mature oak, sycamore and elderberry, two year-round streams, and a designated wildlife sanctuary protecting rare and endangered species.
Laguna Beach Local, the city's free on-demand shared-ride transit service, runs here along with Bluebird Canyon and Arch Beach Heights.
The city's seismic hazard landslide layer covers 75 acres inside the boundary, 31 percent of the area, which is the plainest published fact about building on this ground.
Schools
Schools serving Top of the World
Top of the World Elementary sits inside this neighborhood and enrolled 536 students in kindergarten through fifth grade on the 2024-25 federal count. Laguna Beach Unified runs four schools and 2,291 students in total, so older students continue to Thurston Middle and Laguna Beach High. Attendance is set by the district and can change, so confirm the current assignment for a specific address with Laguna Beach Unified before relying on it.
K-5 · 404 students
K-5 · 536 students
6-8 · 524 students
9-12 · 815 students
FAQs
Common questions about Top of the World
How big is Top of the World and how is it laid out?
The city's published boundary encloses 240 acres, drawn as evacuation zone 19, with 691 households on the city record. The assessor counts 585 parcels on thirty-one named streets along the ridge, reached by Temple Hills Drive and organized on Alta Laguna Boulevard, Mountain View Drive and Hillview Drive.
Why do the streets have Alpine names?
The names are on the record even though the reason is not. Bern, Bonn, Zell, Tyrol, Chillon, Cresta and Chateau all appear in the county's address roll for tracts recorded here between 1959 and 1965, when M. W. Finley surveyed most of the ridge. No publisher states who chose them.
Which schools serve Top of the World?
Laguna Beach Unified serves the whole city from four campuses and 2,291 students on the 2024-25 federal count: El Morro Elementary 404, Top of the World Elementary 536, Thurston Middle 524 and Laguna Beach High 815. Top of the World Elementary stands inside this boundary at 21601 Treetop Lane. Elementary assignment is set by the district and can change, so confirm the current one for a specific address with the district office.
When was Top of the World built?
Almost all of it in the 1960s. M. W. Finley recorded the first tract in 1959 and four more by 1963, twelve tracts in all went on record between 1959 and 1996, and 379 of the roughly 510 dated structures inside the boundary went up in the 1960s. Barely one house in a hundred predates 1950.
What open space is inside the boundary?
Twenty-six acres of open space preserve and ten acres of Aliso and Wood Canyons Wilderness Park, with a third of a mile of city trail crossing the ridge in eight public segments. The city's seismic hazard landslide layer covers 75 of the neighborhood's 240 acres, so ask for the geotechnical file on any specific property.