Overview
About Pacific Knolls
Pacific Knolls covers 95.8 acres and records 511 addresses on 512 parcels with no unit designators, at a median lot of 0.103 acres. Sixteen streets run 3.09 miles inside the boundary and the naming mixes Italian names with English country house names: Amato, Argento, Arrivo, Belcanto, Bolero, Risero and Tesoro alongside Chesterfield, Covington, Harveston, Montgomery, Pemberly, Rosings and Royalston. All 95.7 classified acres sit at 3.5 to 6.5 homes an acre.
The whole boundary lies in flood zone X. Capistrano Unified serves it, and the district's locator returns Bathgate Elementary at some interior points and Philip J. Reilly Elementary at others, with Fred Newhart Middle at 1,105 and Capistrano Valley High at 1,991 common to the whole community.
View available homes in Pacific KnollsHistory
How Pacific Knolls was built
Pacific Knolls is a 511-home neighborhood whose homeowners association records show it was created in 1993, with construction of the single-family homes on its curving streets, Bolero, Montgomery, Harveston, Chesterfield and the rest, continuing into the mid-1990s. That places it squarely in the same later development wave as its larger neighbor Pacific Hills just to the southwest, a period when outside builders, not the original Mission Viejo Company, were filling in the last open hillside on this side of the city.
The neighborhood falls within Capistrano Unified School District, the same district that serves most of southern Mission Viejo. By the early 1990s the Mission Viejo Company itself had already passed from the O'Neill family through Philip Morris ownership, and its role as master developer of the city was winding down; Pacific Knolls belongs to the generation of neighborhoods built by independent homebuilders on the company's remaining ground rather than by the company that platted the city's original 1960s tracts.
By the Numbers
Pacific Knolls by the numbers
Lifestyle
The Pacific Knolls lifestyle
Schools
Schools serving Pacific Knolls
Capistrano Unified serves Pacific Knolls, and the district's address locator splits inside the boundary: some interior points return Bathgate Elementary and others Philip J. Reilly Elementary, with Fred Newhart Middle and Capistrano Valley High common to both. Enrollment below is the 2024-25 federal count.
9-12 · 1,991 students
6-8 · 1,105 students
K-5 · 570 students
K-5 · 421 students
FAQs
Common questions about Pacific Knolls
When was Pacific Knolls built?
Between 1992 and 1993, on six recorded county tract maps filed by Hunsaker and Associates under Tom R. McGannon. An earlier Hunsaker map of 1989 reaches the western edge of the boundary.
Which elementary school serves Pacific Knolls?
It depends on the address. The district's own locator returns Bathgate Elementary at some interior points of the boundary and Philip J. Reilly Elementary at others, so the community straddles an elementary attendance line. Fred Newhart Middle and Capistrano Valley High serve all of it.
Where do the street names come from?
Two sources at once. Amato, Argento, Arrivo, Belcanto, Bolero, Risero and Tesoro are Italian, most of them from the vocabulary of music, while Chesterfield, Covington, Harveston, Montgomery, Pemberly, Rosings and Royalston read as English country house names.
What easements does the community carry?
Tract 14163 records a scenic preservation easement dedicated to the City of Mission Viejo and an open space easement alongside it, and reserves its lettered lots to the homeowners association as landscape lots.
How is Pacific Knolls related to Pacific Hills East?
Both are portions of the same tentative tract, number 11001, and both were mapped by Hunsaker and Associates. Pacific Hills East went on record in 1990 and Pacific Knolls in 1992 and 1993.