Overview
About Craford Hills
Craford Hills runs 174 acres northeast of Chapman and Cannon, holding 298 addresses on 2.46 miles of public street. Santiago Oaks Regional Park sits nine feet from the boundary, effectively against it, and the county measures that piece at 136 acres with hiking and equestrian trails, a nature center, a playground and a scenic outlook. A further 71 acres inside the boundary are designated open space in the general plan and 23 acres are zoned recreation open space.
The housing mix is unusual for the hillside. Ninety four acres are zoned single family on 40,000 square feet, the largest lot standard the city uses, while 30 acres are zoned residential duplex on 7,000 and 11 acres single family on 7,000, which is why the median parcel measures only 0.104 acres. None of the 298 addresses carries a unit designator. The street names run in two registers, wildflowers and birds on one side, Birdcage, Bluebonnet, Bottlebrush, Dandelion, Desert Peach, Hummingbird and Indigo, and English place names on the other, Carlisle, Claridge, Costello and Inverness. The city's parcel record assigns 354 parcels to Linda Vista Elementary and 8 to Esplanade Elementary, then every parcel to Santiago Charter Middle and El Modena High.
View available homes in Craford HillsHistory
How Craford Hills was built
This is the hill slope above El Modena, on ground that was part of Rancho Santiago de Santa Ana and then of the citrus country that surrounded the Quaker colony below. El Modena grew oranges, lemons and roses from the 1880s until the groves came out in the late 1950s, and the higher ground here was grazing and dry farming behind eucalyptus windbreaks. Houses arrived once Orange pushed east up the El Modena grade, and the neighborhood sits directly against the Orange Park Acres country that held out for one acre lots.
The street names come in two unrelated sets, which is usually the sign of two builders. One is a long botanical run of dryland natives, and it is unusually well chosen: Saguaro, Pinyon Pine, Paintbrush, Bluebonnet, Bottlebrush, Chaparral, Indigo, Jimson, Desert Peach, Dandelion, Tumbleweed and Wheatgrass, with Hummingbird and Birdcage among them. The other is British, Carlisle and Inverness for the border and Highland towns, with Claridge and Rockhurst. The rest simply describe the site: Cliffway, Hillgrove, Ridgemont and Sandstone.
By the Numbers
Craford Hills by the numbers
Lifestyle
The Craford Hills lifestyle
Beyond the city's own parks, Santiago Oaks Regional Park begins 9 feet away and covers 136 acres in the county's park layer, which records basketball courts, bird watching, equestrian trails and hiking trails.
Clipped to this boundary, the city's trail layers return 0.37 miles of recreation trail.
Schools
Schools serving Craford Hills
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 Linda Vista Elementary (354) and Esplanade Elementary (8) 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 · 289 students
K-6 · 288 students
FAQs
Common questions about Craford Hills
Who developed Craford Hills?
Three owners in succession. The Crawford Hills Development Company, a partnership of Greenmap Development Corporation and Spring River Corporation, recorded the first unit in February 1988. By November 1994 the owner was BA Properties, the real estate arm of Bank of America, which brought the smaller replan. The condominium portion passed in 1995 to Craford Hills-Orange L.P., managed by Hearthstone.
Why does Craford Hills have both huge lots and duplex ground?
Because the project was approved twice. The 1988 approval allowed 400 units in a mix of detached, attached, townhouse and condominium products; the 1994 replan cut it to 298 all detached units in cottage and village streetscapes. The zoning still carries both eras: 94 acres of Single Family Res. 40000 sq ft against 30 acres of duplex and 11 of small lot single family.
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 returns no hits for Craford and more than 170 for Crawford across its ordinances, resolutions and minutes.
What is the equestrian traffic signal?
A condition of the 1994 approval. The city required a signal for equestrian crossing, with its energy and maintenance costs split between the City of Orange and the homeowners association. It is the only condition of its kind on any of the Orange plan areas covered here.
Which schools serve Craford Hills?
Orange publishes an assigned school on every parcel. Here the city's record assigns 354 parcels to Linda Vista Elementary, which enrolled 289 students on the 2024-25 federal count, and 8 to Esplanade Elementary, which enrolled 288. Every parcel is assigned to Santiago Charter Middle, 1,137 students, and El Modena High, 1,795.