| Kings Mountain/Skyline, Woodside
Kings Mountain, an unincorporated Woodside Neighborhood located south of Highway 92 off Skyline Boulevard, is the kind of place its residents never want to leave.
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It has been 29 years since Lee Pitt was transferred from Los Angeles to the Peninsula, found a magical lot off Skyline Boulevard with a view of the Bay in one direction, and the ocean in the other and decided to build a home there.
The neighborhood, Mr. Pitt says, "is like a small town that has beauty beyond anything a small town would have."
Betty Johnson's story is almost the same. She and husband Steve have been "on the mountain" more than 30 years. "We find that people either come up here and stay for less than two years or they come and stay for a long, long time," she said.
The feeling, she says, is like Tahoe, except that San Francisco is only 40 minutes away.
Many lots are an acre or two, and neighbors are often out of sight, but that isolation actually makes neighborly bonds tighter. "It's important to be there for your neighbors," Betty Johnson says, especially in a storm or other emergency.
Kings Mountain/Skyline facts:
CHILD CARE & PRESCHOOLS: Kings Mountain Children's Center at Kings Mountain School, 211 Swett Road, Woodside
FIRE STATION: CDF Skylonda Station, 17290 Skyline Blvd., Woodside; Kings Mountain Fire Brigade, 13889 Skyline Blvd., Woodside
PARK: Huddart County Park, 1100 Kings Mountain Road, Woodside; Wunderlich County Park, 4040 Woodside Road, Woodside; Purisima Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserve, Skyline Boulevard, Half Moon Bay
PUBLIC SCHOOLS: Cabrillo Unified School District -- Kings Mtn. Elementary School, 211 Swett Road, Woodside; Cunha Intermediate School, Kelly Avenue and Church Street, Half Moon Bay; Half Moon Bay High School, Half Moon Bay Woodside Elementary School District Woodside Elementary School, 3195 Woodside Road, Woodside Sequoia Union High School District -- Woodside High School, 199 Churchill Ave., Woodside
SHOPPING: Crystal Springs Shopping Center, Half Moon Bay shopping district, Woodside
MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $2,304,950 ($659,000-$3,950,000)
NO. OF HOMES SOLD: 2
Neighborhood association: Kings Mountain Association, Cindy Phelps, president, E-mail: cindy@thevillageconnection.net
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One institution that bonds the neighborhood is the Kings Mountain Fire Brigade, the local all-volunteer fire department. Each year for 43 years the Kings Mountain Art Fair has raised money for the fire department and other local causes, such as the Kings Mountain School, the neighborhood newsletter, and the garden club.
Jim Sullivan, chief of the Fire Brigade, manages the fire department volunteers, equipment and training in addition to his paid full-time job as a chemical engineer.
He and wife Kelly have lived in Kings Mountain since soon after they were first married 20 years ago. They moved there for their acre-and-a-half of land, but they've stayed for the community, Kelly says, and are happy to be raising their 8- and 10-year-old daughters there.
Lisa Parral has lived in Kings Mountain, for nine years. But with her 10-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son attending the small Kings Mountain School, she feels they are connected to families with children in the neighborhood.
"People look out for each other, and for each other's children," Ms. Parral said. The school has only four classrooms for five grades -- K through 5, and has been ranked in the top 10 in San Mateo County for two years, Ms. Parral says.
There are some drawbacks. Two restaurants are the only commercial establishments in Kings Mountain. It can be windy and sometimes the power goes out in winter storms.
From 1854 to 1920, Kings Mountain was the site of a number of sawmills that harvested local redwoods, shipping the lumber to San Francisco and the rest of the Bay Area through Redwood City. Lumbering ended when the supply of trees was exhausted. But the towering redwoods that now shade much of the area have since grown up from the roots of those original giants.
-- Barbara Wood |
