Crescent Park, Palo Alto

At 7:45 a.m. Susie Hwang and other Dana Avenue parents trot down a tunnel of magnolia-lined streets, passing a mixture of grand mansions, hidden bungalows and forest-like front yards. Morning walks to Duveneck Elementary School begin with scenic adventures, and end in camaraderie, as the neighborhood crossing guard greets incoming students and parents.

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"In that 20 minutes you are walking your kids to school, a lot of friends are made," said Hwang, who always envisioned a tight-knit neighborhood before moving to Palo Alto 14 years ago. She wanted a community within walking distance of downtown, one with families, less traffic, less noise, beautiful trees and a mixture of old and new homes.

She found that perfect blend in Palo Alto's Crescent Park neighborhood. Nestled between San Francisquito Creek, Newell Road, Channing Avenue and Middlefield Road, Crescent Park has become the crown jewel of real estate. The diverse range of architectural styles, from Mediterranean, Early Californian, Victorian and occasionally, Monterey Colonial, sit on mainly 20,000-square-foot lots.

"It's one of the neighborhoods that has a number of two-story houses, in contrast to a lot of Palo Alto, which has a lot of one-story houses," said Norman Beamer, president of the Crescent Park Neighborhood Association.

Facts: CHILDCARE AND PRESCHOOLS: Crescent Park Child Development Center (Peekaboo), 888 Boyce Ave. FIRE STATION: No. 3, 799 Embarcadero Road LIBRARY: Main Library, 1213 Newell Road NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION: Norman Beamer, 650-327-7071 PARKS: Eleanor Pardee park, 851 Center Drive; Hopkins Creekside Park along Palo Alto Avenue POST OFFICES: Hamilton, 380 Hamiliton Avenue; Main, 2085 E. Bayshore Road PRIVATE SCHOOLS: St. Elizabeth Seton School, 1095 Channing Ave. PUBLIC SCHOOLS: Duveneck Elementary School, Jordan Middle School, Palo Alto High School SHOPPING: Edgewood Shopping Center MEDIAN 2007 HOME PRICE: $2,100,000 ($710,000-$15,000,000) # HOMES SOLD: 40 MEDIAN 2007 CONDO PRICE: $1,400,000 ($775,000-$1,425,000) # CONDOS SOLD: 3

But Crescent Park didn't always dominate the Palo Alto housing market. In fact, it had modest beginnings.

Back in 1924, homes cost $10,000, and deeds provided a number of restrictions, including the prohibition of cattle, hogs, poultry and people of African, Japanese and Chinese decent, all provisions later terminated.

According to Margaret Feuer, a former CPNA president for more than six years, Crescent Park was part of an original 2,200-acre land grant called Rancho Rinconada del Arroyo de San Francisquito, given to Rafael Soto and Maria Antonio Mesa in 1835 by Gov. Alvarado. The original owners, called "Californios," ultimately lost title to their land and in 1864, Dr. William Newell bought the property along with 40 surrounding acres from Henry W. Seale, who secured the grant's confirmation. There, Newell planted some of the first Australian eucalyptus trees in America.

By 1867, with Leland Stanford providing the money and Timothy Hopkins the expertise, approximately 740 acres of the Newell farmland were purchased for the university town of Palo Alto.

"Palo Alto looked a lot different then," said Steven Staiger, Palo Alto's historical librarian. "From 1906 to the mid 1920s, there was a streetcar that ran down University Avenue to the creek so these people could travel to downtown Palo Alto or to the university campus, which was a major employer."

Staiger said that the name Crescent Park, which was adopted in 1920, developed because a couple of streets were crescent moon-shaped. One of those streets, Crescent Drive, is a half circle north of University Avenue, and was configured to fit the shape of the San Francisquito Creek.

Additions to the area occurred in 1928, when a 31-acre lot along the creek to Newell road was added, and in the late 1940s to keep up with postwar demands for housing.

Since then, Crescent Park has gone through a school closure, a significant drop in the number of children during the 1970s, a recycling of families, and major floods, with the last in 1998. Through it all however, it has maintained the comfort and luxury it promised during its official opening in 1924.

"It's a very quiet, child-friendly, well-groomed neighborhood," said Beamer, noting that the previous owners of his house threw a welcoming party for his family 14 years ago.

Carolyn Reese, a Kirby Place resident since 1972, said she loves the wonderful trees and gardens of the neighborhood.

She recollected one of her first July Fourth celebrations: "Everyone wore costumes, wrote plays, all these little boys were signing the Declaration of Independence and girls were playing Betsy Ross. It was such an important July and it was so memorable," said Reese.

Although there aren't as many community parties on Reese's block, other streets still host parties.

"There are block parties on Dana Avenue, and then on Forest Avenue every Fourth of July," said Hwang. "It's just a big potluck."

Hwang said one of her neighbors even turned her front lawn into an organic children's garden so that the neighborhood kids could learn about nature and Mother Earth.

"It's those kind of things that make the neighborhood special," she said.

While the CPNA doesn't formally host any of the block parties or community social events, it does address concerns of the approximately 1,800 households in the community.

"A current issue of concern is to get the city to enlarge the Chaucer Street Bridge, which would prevent the recurrence of the $28 million in damage, which resulted from overflowing of the creek in 1998," said Feuer, who is still a member of the CPNA.

According to Beamer, the reconstruction of the bridge in the 1940s made it much narrower, which has created a constriction on the creek. Whenever there is a major infall of water, the creek backs up and eventually overflows, he said.

As a result of the damage, several neighbors sued the city and entered an alliance with the communities of Menlo Park, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, to form the Joint Powers Authority in 1999, which is striving to fix the creek in case of a 100-year flood -- all of which would require more than $100 million and at least two decades.

Despite the fact that the flood is a 70-year event, "[it] occurred twice in the '50s, in 1998, and in 2002 it came within inches of overflowing," said Beamer who thinks increases in the levies would solve the short-term problem.

"They created the bridge in the 1940s and they should fix it," Beamer added.

The CPNA is also concerned with increased traffic on University Avenue. Despite a petition with approximately 400 signatures, they were unable to convince the City Council to lower the truck size on University to three-to-four tons and, according to Feuer, have still been unable to get the city to enforce the existing seven-ton truck limit. Regardless of that, speed bumps and islands on Channing Avenue have been implemented, as well as stop signs at the intersection of Hale Street and Hamilton Avenue.

The group did successfully petition to allow building six-foot walls or fences within five feet of the sidewalks in order to protect houses on University from the noise and visual effect of traffic -- something the city's Historic Resources Board felt would threaten the area's historic and aesthetic value.

But historian Staiger says that when you have a significant investment in a home, you want to protect its privacy.

Residents such as Hwang and Reese however, feel that there aren't many hot-button issues in the neighborhood, and that regardless of the changes that have taken place in the last few years, Crescent Park has maintained its uniqueness.

"It just feels like home," said Reese. "Even when I leave and come back, it's just home."

-- Koren Temple