Overview
About Portola Hills II
Portola Hills II covers 105.4 acres and holds 382 homes on thirteen streets, with a median lot of 7,723 square feet, the third largest detached lot median in Lake Forest. Fourteen acres inside the boundary carry a regional park and open space designation and 16.5 acres are zoned open space, and the whole boundary sits in FEMA flood zone X.
The association runs one community pool, one tennis court and one volleyball court, alongside 60 private backyard pools, 75 solar installations and 47 spas on the city's layer. Irvine Ranch Water District supplies the water, OCFA Station 42 on Ridgeline Road covers the addresses, and children go to Portola Hills Elementary, Serrano Intermediate and El Toro High.
View available homes in Portola Hills IIHistory
How Portola Hills II was built
The name honors Gaspar de Portola, California's first Spanish land explorer, who passed through this vicinity in 1769. Nothing was built up here for another two centuries. The ground was the upper end of Rancho Canada de los Alisos, 10,668 acres granted in 1842 by Governor Alvarado to Jose Antonio Serrano, and it stayed range until the drought that began in 1863 killed the herds and the family lost the rancho to a Los Angeles banker.
Dwight Whiting of Boston bought most of it in 1884 and tried to make it farm: olives, grape vines, and roughly 400 acres of eucalyptus near Serrano Creek intended as a lumber crop. The venture failed and the trees stayed, and in the late 1960s Occidental Petroleum built houses among them and dug two artificial lakes, giving the city both halves of its eventual name. Portola Hills was developed between the late 1980s and early 1990s while still outside the city, and Lake Forest annexed it after a vote in 2000.
By the Numbers
Portola Hills II by the numbers
Lifestyle
The Portola Hills II lifestyle
Lake Forest keeps 31 parks open from dawn to dusk. The Lake Forest Sports Park and Recreation Center opened in November 2014 on 86 acres, with 57 of them given over to sports fields, and the city runs the largest free skatepark in Orange County at Etnies Skatepark.
Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park holds 1,575 acres of county open space against the north edge of the city, and the city's trail map carries 49 named trails.
Across the whole city the general plan sets 3,756 acres to residential use and 3,065 acres to open space and parks, which is why so much of Lake Forest reads as green from the ridgelines.
Schools
Schools serving Portola Hills II
The City of Lake Forest property record names Portola Hills Elementary for all 400 addresses in Portola Hills II, with Serrano Intermediate for middle school and El Toro High for high school. There is no split at any level. All three are Saddleback Valley Unified campuses.
9-12 · 1,902 students
7-8 · 868 students
K-6 · 809 students
FAQs
Common questions about Portola Hills II
How big is Portola Hills II?
The community covers 105.4 acres on the city's published boundary, eighth largest of the fifty Lake Forest communities on this site, and holds 382 homes on 400 parcels across thirteen streets.
What size are the lots?
The median parcel measures 7,723 square feet, the third largest of the thirty-three Lake Forest communities on this site where a parcel median describes a detached lot rather than shared ground, behind Montbury at 10,818 and San Rita Ridge at 9,382.
When was Portola Hills II laid out?
All five subdivision maps inside the boundary were recorded between November 21, 1988 and August 30, 1989, every one engineered by J.P. Kapp and Associates and signed by J.P. Kapp. The city's build year layer places 49.3 acres of building footprint in the 1991 to 2000 band and 27.5 acres in 1981 to 1990.
Which schools serve Portola Hills II?
The city's property record names Portola Hills Elementary, Serrano Intermediate and El Toro High for all 400 addresses inside the boundary, with no split at any level. All three are Saddleback Valley Unified campuses.
Are there shared amenities?
Yes. The city's recreation layer records one community pool, one tennis court and one volleyball court inside the boundary, alongside 60 private backyard pools, 47 spas and 75 solar installations.