Overview
About Canyon Acres
Canyon Acres runs up a side canyon off Laguna Canyon Road on Canyon Acres Drive, with Arroyo Drive, Woodland Drive, Lewellyn Drive and Canyon Crest Drive branching from it and two footpaths, Victory Walk and Fairywood Walk, carrying their own addresses. The city draws it as evacuation zone 3 and records 261 households inside it. Across 291 acres the assessor counts just 298 parcels on fifteen named streets, and of the parcels the city zones here eighty-seven fall under its Sarah Thurston Park designation rather than ordinary residential zoning.
Eighty-five acres inside the boundary are Laguna Coast Wilderness Park and 180 acres in all are open space preserve, so more than half the canyon is protected land rather than lots. The city maintains 1.26 miles of trail here and the city corporation yard sits at 1900 Laguna Canyon Road inside the line. The Historic Resources Inventory lists 47 resources in the canyon, every one filed under Laguna Canyon. Laguna Beach Unified serves it from four campuses and 2,291 students, El Morro and Top of the World elementaries feeding Thurston Middle and then Laguna Beach High.
View available homes in Canyon AcresHistory
How Canyon Acres was built
A chapel schoolhouse was built in 1883 as a meeting house and a school for the twenty Mormon children in the area, and in the 1890s it was moved down the canyon into the Canyon Acres area, where it became Laguna Elementary School. That single building is a fair summary of what the canyon was for its first fifty years: the road in, the school, a scatter of homesteads on ground the Spanish had named Cañada de las Lagunas, the glen of the lagoons.
The painters arrived in the years after 1900, William Wendt, Frank Cuprien, Anna Hills and Edgar Payne among them, and the Laguna Beach Art Association they founded in 1918 grew into the city’s art museum. Canyon Acres kept the working end of that culture, cottages and studios rather than showrooms, and the city still lists forty seven historic resources inside this boundary.
By the Numbers
Canyon Acres by the numbers
Lifestyle
The Canyon Acres lifestyle
Laguna Beach occupies 8.84 square miles with a population of about 23,000 and roughly six million visitors a year on the city's own count, and provides its own police, fire and marine safety protection.
Beaches north of Aliso Creek close between 1:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m.; beaches south of the creek close between 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m.; Thousand Steps Beach closes between 9:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m.
The city permits surfing at Agate, Brooks, Rockpile and Thalia Street beaches. Smoking fines on city beaches, parks and trails run $100, then $200, then $500 within twelve months.
Schools
Schools serving Canyon Acres
Laguna Beach Unified serves Canyon Acres along with the rest of the city, from four campuses and 2,291 students on the 2024-25 federal count: El Morro Elementary 404, Top of the World Elementary 536, Thurston Middle 524 and Laguna Beach High 815. Attendance is set by the district and can change, so confirm the current assignment for a specific address with the district before relying on it.
K-5 · 404 students
K-5 · 536 students
6-8 · 524 students
9-12 · 815 students
FAQs
Common questions about Canyon Acres
How big is Canyon Acres and how is it laid out?
The city's published boundary encloses 291 acres, drawn as evacuation zone 3, with 261 households on the city record. The assessor counts only 298 parcels on fifteen named streets running up a side canyon off Laguna Canyon Road, including two footpaths, Victory Walk and Fairywood Walk, which carry their own addresses. At about one parcel to the acre it is among the least densely subdivided parts of the city.
Which schools serve Canyon Acres?
Laguna Beach Unified serves the whole city from four campuses and 2,291 students on the 2024-25 federal count: El Morro Elementary 404, Top of the World Elementary 536, Thurston Middle 524 and Laguna Beach High 815. A district-owned school parcel also stands on Laguna Canyon Road inside the boundary. Elementary assignment is set by the district, so confirm the current one for a specific address with the district office.
Why is so much of the canyon undeveloped?
Because most of it is protected. Eighty-five acres inside the boundary are Laguna Coast Wilderness Park and 180 acres in all are open space preserve, more than half the canyon. Eighty-seven parcels fall under the city's Sarah Thurston Park designation rather than ordinary residential zoning, and only one subdivision map has ever been recorded over the canyon.
How old are the houses in Canyon Acres?
Older than anywhere else in the city. Seventy-one percent of the structures inside the boundary predate 1950, and the 1930s produced more of them than any other decade. H. K. Peabody's Tract 1023, recorded in 1937, is the only subdivision map ever filed over the canyon, and the Historic Resources Inventory lists 47 resources here, all filed under Laguna Canyon.
What happened here in the 1993 fire?
The fire burned west, jumped the canyon above El Toro Road at the Big Bend and came down into Canyon Acres Drive. Across the city that fire destroyed 366 homes, and Top of the World and Temple Hills were evacuated. Ask about defensible space, fuel modification requirements and current fire hazard mapping on any specific canyon property.