Overview
About Highlands
Highlands is the largest of the neighborhoods the City of Los Alamitos zones Single Family Residential, 99 acres at the southwest edge of the city holding 427 parcels and 426 addresses. Lots run to about 0.175 acres and nine named streets cover 3.10 miles: Bradbury, Cherry, Kempton, La Colmena, Paseo Bonita, Pine, Reagan, Rossmoor and Vista De Ora.
Orville R. Lewis Jr. Park stands inside the boundary at 3662 Kempton Drive. The city's inventory gives it 1.65 acres with a grass area, a baseball backstop, a basketball court, a play area, a barbecue, a picnic shelter with tables and a drinking fountain, and the Open Space Element says the park was placed at the southwestern edge of the city to give Highlands open space. About fifty homes across Highlands and New Dutch Haven sit above the 65 dBA CNEL contour the airport land use plan draws for the Joint Forces Training Base, and those homes are required to be sound attenuated so interior levels stay under 45 dBA. Los Alamitos Unified School District covers the neighborhood, with Los Alamitos High at 3591 Cerritos Avenue enrolling 2,809.
View available homes in HighlandsHistory
How Highlands was built
This neighborhood went up as Rossmoor Highlands in 1961, and the name is a straight borrowing. Ross W. Cortese had just finished Rossmoor immediately to the west, three thousand four hundred homes behind a red brick wall built between 1955 and 1961, and calling the next tract over the Highlands attached it to the largest single development in Orange County. Rossmoor Way still runs through it. Cortese and his wife Alona had founded Rossmoor Corporation in 1951 after meeting in a real estate class at Hollywood High School, and he went on from here to build Leisure World in Seal Beach.
The Spanish street names are worth translating. La Colmena is the beehive, Paseo Bonita is the pretty walk, and Vista De Ora reads as a view of gold, which on this ground is less romantic than it sounds because the gold in question was sugar beets. County records give a median build year of 1962 across more than four hundred homes on ninety nine acres, with a scattering of older houses going back to the 1920s. Orville R. Lewis Jr. Park sits inside the boundary on Kempton Drive with an acre and a half of open ground.
By the Numbers
Highlands by the numbers
Lifestyle
The Highlands lifestyle
The city keeps 18 acres of public park across four neighborhood parks and five pocket parks. Little Cottonwood Park on Farquhar Avenue is the largest of them at 6.75 acres, with a basketball court, a sand volleyball court and a softball field. Coyote Creek Park opened in 2013 and turned a bare utility corridor into a 3.69 acre greenway along the Coyote Creek Channel.
Laurel Park runs to 4.33 acres on Bloomfield Street with a lighted multipurpose field and lighted tennis courts, and it has hosted the Los Alamitos Girls Softball League since 1974. The Aquatic Center, which the city leases and operates, is home to the USA Water Polo National Training Center and an outdoor 50 meter pool.
Schools
Schools serving Highlands
Los Alamitos Unified School District covers the whole of Highlands. The campuses below are the district's, with enrollment from the state's 2025-26 census day count. The district publishes no attendance boundary map, so confirm the assigned campus for a specific address with the district.
9-12 · 2,809 students
6-8 · 1,031 students
6-8 · 1,017 students
K-5 · 680 students
K-5 · 641 students
K-5 · 638 students
K-5 · 636 students
K-5 · 603 students
K-5 · 569 students
FAQs
Common questions about Highlands
How big is Highlands and how many homes are in it?
The boundary the city draws encloses 99 acres, which makes Highlands the largest of the neighborhoods Los Alamitos zones Single Family Residential. The county records 427 parcels and 426 addresses inside it, on lots of about 0.175 acres, with nine named streets covering 3.10 miles.
Does the Joint Forces Training Base affect homes in Highlands?
For some of them, yes. The airport land use plan for the base puts about fifty existing homes across Highlands and New Dutch Haven above the 65 dBA CNEL noise contour, and those homes are required to be sound attenuated so that interior noise levels stay under 45 dBA CNEL. The city records that the base does not use live ordnance and that its noise comes from roadway traffic, large events and aircraft operations, which increase on weekends and during select training periods.
When were the homes in Highlands built?
Mostly in the early 1960s. The county carries a build year on all 426 parcels here, the earliest 1926 and the latest 1964, with half of them 1962 or before. The two tract maps covering most of the neighborhood are Tract 3985, recorded in September 1961, and Tract 3984, recorded in October 1962, both surveyed by Winston I. Keerl.
Is there a park in Highlands?
Yes. Orville R. Lewis Jr. Park sits inside the boundary at 3662 Kempton Drive on 1.65 acres, with a grass area, a baseball backstop, a basketball court, a play area, a barbecue, a picnic shelter with tables and a drinking fountain. The city's Open Space Element says the park was placed at the southwestern edge of the city specifically to give this neighborhood open space.
Which schools serve Highlands?
Los Alamitos Unified School District covers all of it. The district enrolls 603 students at Los Alamitos Elementary on Bloomfield Street, 1,017 at Oak Middle on Oak Street, 1,031 at Sharon Christa McAuliffe Middle on Cerritos Avenue and 2,809 at Los Alamitos High at 3591 Cerritos Avenue. All nine of the district's comprehensive schools have been honored as National Blue Ribbon Schools, California Distinguished Schools, or both. The district publishes no attendance boundary map, so confirm the assigned campus for a specific address with the district.