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Finding a newcomer to the Woodside Glens neighborhood is no easy task.

Most people, it seems, have lived here half their lives or more.

"Once you move to the Glens, I think you stay for a really long time," says Sandra Pugh, who has lived here for 36 years.

"The Glens" is different from the rest of Woodside. It isn't a collection of $10 million estates on 10-plus-acre lots. The houses are close together, though the rugged terrain keeps them private. Thanks to the proximity, people can come out onto the winding, narrow roads to chat with a neighbor.

For the Glens' residents, the neighborhood provides all the advantages of living near the Woodside town center with the bonus of a tight-knit community.

Centered around Glenwood Road off Canada Road, the neighborhood seems to have a higher concentration of school-age kids than anywhere else in Woodside, Ms. Pugh says. As a result, the moms' and dads' groups in the neighborhood have largely taken the reigns from the Glens Association that was active when Ms. Pugh first moved here. A Halloween party and other kid-centered activities are popular.

One neighbor even puts out a bean-bag-toss game for kids to play on their walk home from school, she says.

Like many groups of homes in beautiful settings, Woodside Glens was originally made up of vacation homes for people from San Francisco, says Paul Fregulia, who also has been here 36 years. Many of the houses were built in the 1930s, he says.

The variety of styles of homes is one of the features of the neighborhood that Mr. Gregulia loves, he says. And it feels like living in the country, with redwoods and the creek and steep valleys, but it's just a few minutes to the town center and the freeway.

People talk about living here as though it's a fantasy. It's like living in a tree house or it feels like a Tahoe vacation community, or it's like an old-fashioned neighborhood, they say.

Jeanne Carley has been a Woodside resident off and on since she was 3 years old, but she's finally settled down here. "The Glens is sweet. It's very friendly," she says.

Ms. Carley has only been in her new home for about two years, but she's already come to appreciate the neighborliness.

Neighbors loan out their driveway space when someone's having a party, since there's very little parking available on the narrow streets. And when a vacant house was gutted by fire just before Thanksgiving, some residents helped neighbors living adjacent to the fire evacuate, she says.

"People help each other out," she says.


FACTS


CHILD CARE & PRESCHOOLS: Woodside Parents' Nursery School, 3154 Woodside Road, Woodside; Woodside Preschool, 3195 Woodside Road, Woodside

FIRE STATION: 3111 Woodside Road, Woodside

PARK: Huddart County Park, 1100 Kings Mountain Road, Woodside; Wunderlich County Park, 4040 Woodside Road, Woodside

PUBLIC SCHOOLS: Woodside Elementary School District — Woodside Elementary School, 3195 Woodside Road, Woodside

Sequoia Union High School District — Woodside High School, 199 Churchill Ave., Woodside

SHOPPING: Woodside Road, Woodside

MEDIAN HOME PRICE: $1,340,000 ($1,100,000-$1,890,000)

No. of homes sold: 3

View the neighborhood map (PDF)

— Kathy Schrenk