Overview
About Turtle Rock
Turtle Rock is one of the villages the City of Irvine publishes on its own map, carried in the planning framework as Planning Area 21, and the boundary encloses about 1,868 acres of the San Joaquin Hills. Governance runs through 18 master associations rather than one village-wide body, each numbered under the same 21 prefix the planning area uses, among them Turtle Rock Park and Recreation, Turtle Rock Ridge, Turtle Rock Glen and Turtle Rock Crest. Concordia University sits inside the same line, on three city parcels totaling about 68 acres.
Three City of Irvine parks fall inside the boundary: Turtle Rock Community Park at 25.1 acres, Chaparral Park at 9.6 and Canyon Park at 3.4. The community park at 1 Sunnyhill holds the community center, the five-acre Turtle Rock Nature Center, four lighted tennis courts, a lighted volleyball court, a ball diamond, an amphitheater, two children's play areas and 22 picnic tables. Separately the Turtle Rock Park and Recreation Association runs a private five-acre facility at 19175 Turtle Rock Drive for 550 member homes, with a lap pool, diving and wading pools, tennis courts and basketball courts reached by gate card. About 13.4 miles of city bikeway run inside the village, 5.4 of them off street, and the village feeds Irvine Unified: Bonita Canyon and Turtle Rock elementaries lead to Rancho San Joaquin Middle and then to University High, which graduates 97.2 percent of its students.
View available homes in Turtle RockHistory
How Turtle Rock was built
Turtle Rock sits in the San Joaquin Hills, on ground that was Rancho San Joaquin, the 48,803-acre Mexican land grant held by Jose Andres Sepulveda. Drought forced him to sell in 1864, to the Flint brothers, Llewellyn Bixby and James Irvine, and the rancho became the lower half of the Irvine Ranch. The village takes its name from a rocky outcropping on Rockview Drive shaped like the front of a turtle's shell, a formation the Gabrielino held sacred and named more than two centuries ago. It has also been called Lizard Rock and Frog Rock, and it weighs about twenty tons.
The village was founded in 1967 and a turtle sculpture at the corner of Turtle Rock and Sunnyhill Drives marks the year. It was the first hillside village on the Irvine Ranch, and the plan reflected that: instead of leveling the slopes, homes were wrapped around the terraced hills and organized on a central looping road so the hilltops survived. Turtle Rock is one of the five villages the City of Irvine records as complete by 1970, alongside University Park, Culverdale, The Ranch and Walnut, and it was the people living in those five villages who voted on 28 December 1971 to incorporate the city. The village is older than Irvine itself.
By the Numbers
Turtle Rock by the numbers
Real Estate
Market snapshot
Real estate snapshot
50 closed sales · 01/26/26 – 07/20/26
| Median sale price | $2,290,000 |
| Median price per sq ft | $988 |
| Median home size | 2,287 sq ft |
| Median days on market | 11 |
| Sale-to-list ratio | 99.8% |
| Price range | $1,050,000 – $4,968,000 |
| Year built | 1968 – 2017 |
Price range distribution
Share of closed sales by price band
Our Sales
Our recent sales in Turtle Rock
8 transactions of ours in this neighborhood, placed here by the City of Irvine address record rather than by zip code. The section renders only real transactions and does not pad to fill the row.
Lifestyle
The Turtle Rock lifestyle
Schools
Schools serving Turtle Rock
Turtle Rock addresses are in Irvine Unified. Two elementary schools serve the village. Bonita Canyon Elementary's attendance area is recorded by the district as the Turtle Rock village, and Turtle Rock Elementary sits inside the village at 5151 Amalfi Drive and appears on Rancho San Joaquin's feeder list. Both lead to Rancho San Joaquin Middle for grades seven and eight, and Rancho San Joaquin feeds University High, whose assignment area the district records as southern Irvine below the 405 from Jamboree Road east to Bake Parkway, naming Turtle Rock in it. Which of the two elementary schools a given address attends is set by the district's boundary map, and IUSD adjusts boundaries periodically, so confirm the current assignment for a specific address at iusd.org before it carries weight in a decision.
9-12 · 2,307 students
7-8 · 860 students
K-6 · 881 students
K-6 · 395 students
FAQs
Common questions about Turtle Rock
What does a home in Turtle Rock sell for?
The median was $2,290,000 across fifty closed sales between 26 January and 20 July 2026, at $988 a square foot on a median closed size of 2,287 square feet. Closings ran from $1,050,000 to $4,968,000. Just under half landed between $2 million and $3 million, with seven sales below $1.5 million and eight above $3 million.
How fast do homes sell here, and do they sell at asking?
Half of the fifty closings were in escrow within eleven days, and the median closing came in at 99.8 percent of the original asking price. Speed moves with size: the fifteen four-bedroom homes took a median of six days, while the seven five-bedroom homes took 43. With 22 listings standing active alongside those fifty sales, about 2.5 months of supply, the price set in the first week generally decides the outcome.
Which schools serve Turtle Rock?
Irvine Unified. Bonita Canyon Elementary, with 395 students and 79 percent meeting or exceeding standard in English and 76 percent in math, has its attendance area recorded as the Turtle Rock village. Turtle Rock Elementary, with 881 students at 84 percent and 80 percent, sits inside the village and feeds the same middle school. Both lead to Rancho San Joaquin Middle, which enrolls 860 at 78 percent and 74 percent, and Rancho San Joaquin feeds University High, which enrolls 2,307 in grades nine to twelve and reports a 97.2 percent graduation rate with 90 AP courses offered. IUSD adjusts boundaries periodically, so confirm the assignment for a specific address at iusd.org.
Who can use the pool and the tennis courts?
The Turtle Rock Park and Recreation Association runs a five-acre private facility at 19175 Turtle Rock Drive serving 550 member homes, with a lap pool, diving and wading pools, tennis courts and basketball courts, reached by gate card by members and the guests who accompany them. Its membership is Turtle Rock Hills, Turtle Rock Terraces and Turtle Rock Broadmoor, and the City's HOA layer records the same three as sub-associations under master association 21.4. An address outside those three does not carry that access, which is worth establishing before an offer.
What is the Turtle Rock Nature Center?
It is a five-acre nature preserve inside Turtle Rock Community Park at 1 Sunnyhill Drive, which the City describes as both a home for wildlife and an outdoor classroom at the base of the San Joaquin Hills. A paved trail winds through native Southern Californian habitats including riparian, desert and woodlands, past a pond, a native plant garden designed and completed by Eagle Scout Nathaniel Pinckney, and a labyrinth of circular rock path built by Eagle Scout Michael Nakahara of Troop 606. Visitors can walk the trail on their own during operating hours; guided group tours and Scout badge programs run by reservation. The building itself is the paddock from the Bommer Canyon cattle camp, the only original ranch structure left on the site.