Overview
About Craford Canyon
Craford Canyon covers 152 acres southeast of Chapman and Canyon View, with 353 addresses. Only Chapman Avenue and Canyon View Avenue were dedicated to the public; the interior streets were recorded as private, with an access easement granted to the city for trash, police, fire and utilities. Eighty three of the 152 acres, more than half the boundary, are designated open space in the general plan, and the built ground is zoned single family on 20,000 square feet across 132 acres with 7 acres of multiple family. Seventy six of the addresses carry a unit designator, so part of what stands here is attached housing, and the median parcel measures 0.146 acres.
The street names come in two sets that still mark where one tract ended and the next began. Rocking Horse, Kings Crown, Eagles Point, Ridgeview and West View run through one half; Breton, Normandie, Notre Dame, Saint Germain and Joan D Arc run through the other. Santiago Oaks Regional Park lies 1,557 feet from the boundary, 136 acres of county land with hiking and equestrian trails, a nature center and a playground. The city's parcel record assigns 334 parcels to Panorama Elementary and 60 to Jordan Academy of Language and Computer Science, then every parcel to Santiago Charter Middle and El Modena High.
View available homes in Craford CanyonHistory
How Craford Canyon was built
This was a citrus grove, part of the El Modena Citrus Lands mapped in the nineteenth century on ground that had been Rancho Santiago de Santa Ana. El Modena, immediately downhill, was a Quaker colony from the 1880s that grew oranges and roses for eastern markets until the 1950s, and this hillside was the top edge of that farming. The groves came off in stages as Orange pushed east, and what replaced them is a neighborhood built from 1981 onward by Baldwin and other builders.
It went in under two names, and the street signs still show the seam. One half was Rocking Horse Ridge, and its streets are the view and the ranch: Rocking Horse, Kings Crown, Eagles Point, Ridgeview, West View and Mountain View. The other half was Brittany Heights, and every street in it is French: Breton, which means a person from Brittany, along with Normandie, Notre Dame, Saint Germain and Joan d'Arc. Two developers' marketing names, thirty years old, are now the most reliable way to tell which part of the neighborhood you are standing in.
By the Numbers
Craford Canyon by the numbers
Lifestyle
The Craford Canyon lifestyle
Beyond the city's own parks, Santiago Oaks Regional Park begins 1,557 feet away and covers 136 acres in the county's park layer, which records basketball courts, bird watching, equestrian trails and hiking trails.
Schools
Schools serving Craford Canyon
Orange publishes the assigned school on every parcel in the city, which means the campuses below are the ones the city itself sends this boundary to rather than the ones that happen to be nearest. The city's parcel record assigns parcels here to Panorama Elementary (334) and Jordan Academy of Language and Computer Science (60) for elementary, every parcel here to Santiago Charter Middle for middle and every parcel here to El Modena High for high. Enrollment is the 2024-25 federal count.
9-12 · 1,795 students
7-8 · 1,137 students
K-6 · 408 students
K-6 · 430 students
FAQs
Common questions about Craford Canyon
Who built Craford Canyon?
Baldwin Builders was the subdivider of the first recorded unit in 1980, signed by James P. Baldwin as president and Alfred E. Baldwin as secretary. Ten tract maps in all were recorded here between 1980 and 1987, engineered throughout by E. L. Pearson and Associates.
Is it spelled Craford or Crawford?
The city uses both. The plan area register that draws this boundary spells it Craford, and that spelling is used here because the boundary and the name come from that register. The city's own document archive, however, returns no hits for Craford and more than 170 for Crawford across its ordinances, resolutions and minutes, so Crawford is the spelling in the city's written record.
Are the streets private?
The interior streets are. The first recorded map dedicated only Chapman Avenue and Canyon View Avenue to the public and created the interior as private streets, granting the city an access easement over them for trash collection, police, fire and utilities.
What was here before the houses?
Citrus. The recorded map describes the land as part of lots 1 and 42 of the El Modena Citrus Lands. More than half the boundary was never built on: the general plan designates 83 of the 152 acres open space, and Santiago Oaks Regional Park lies 1,557 feet beyond it.
Which schools serve Craford Canyon?
Orange publishes an assigned school on every parcel. Here the city's record assigns 334 parcels to Panorama Elementary, which enrolled 408 students on the 2024-25 federal count, and 60 to Jordan Academy of Language and Computer Science, which enrolled 430. Every parcel is assigned to Santiago Charter Middle, 1,137 students, and El Modena High, 1,795.