Overview
About Montbury
Montbury covers 135.5 acres and holds 217 homes on ten streets, the largest median lot in Lake Forest at 10,818 square feet. The land is as open as the lots: 24.6 acres inside the boundary carry an open space designation, 5.3 more are regional park and open space, and the zoning layer still records eighteen acres as A1 agricultural. The Aliso Creek Trail runs through the community, and 9.6 acres sit in FEMA flood zone AE.
The city's pool layer counts 122 backyard pools inside the boundary, 89 spas, 40 solar installations and three tennis courts, and no shared pool. That is more than one private pool for every two homes. Little El Toro Plaza sits inside the boundary on the city's shopping center layer, and children go to Lake Forest Elementary, Serrano Intermediate and El Toro High.
View available homes in MontburyHistory
How Montbury was built
Montbury has a median lot of 10,818 square feet and sits on ground the city still partly zones agricultural. All of this was Rancho Canada de los Alisos, the 10,668 acre grant Governor Alvarado made to Jose Antonio Serrano in 1842, worked as cattle range until the drought that began in 1863 killed the herds and forced the rancho into a Los Angeles banker's hands.
Dwight Whiting bought most of it in 1884 and spent two decades trying to farm it. He brought rail access, subdivided, and planted olives, grape vines and roughly 400 acres of eucalyptus near Serrano Creek as a lumber crop meant to draw settlers to a village he called Aliso City. The dry ground and poor soil beat him. What survived was the eucalyptus, and when Occidental Petroleum built houses among the grown out groves in the late 1960s and dug two artificial lakes, the forest and the lakes named the city.
By the Numbers
Montbury by the numbers
Lifestyle
The Montbury lifestyle
Aliso Creek Trail runs through the community on the city's trail map. Little El Toro Plaza is the shopping center the city maps inside the boundary.
Lake Forest keeps 31 parks open from dawn to dusk. The Lake Forest Sports Park and Recreation Center opened in November 2014 on 86 acres, with 57 of them given over to sports fields, and the city runs the largest free skatepark in Orange County at Etnies Skatepark.
Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park holds 1,575 acres of county open space against the north edge of the city, and the city's trail map carries 49 named trails.
Across the whole city the general plan sets 3,756 acres to residential use and 3,065 acres to open space and parks, which is why so much of Lake Forest reads as green from the ridgelines.
Schools
Schools serving Montbury
The City of Lake Forest property record names Lake Forest Elementary for all 263 addresses in Montbury, with Serrano Intermediate for middle school and El Toro High for high school. There is no split at any level. All three are Saddleback Valley Unified campuses.
9-12 · 1,902 students
7-8 · 868 students
K-6 · 640 students
FAQs
Common questions about Montbury
How big is Montbury?
The community covers 135.5 acres on the city's published boundary, fifth largest of the fifty Lake Forest communities on this site, but holds only 217 homes, which ranks twenty-ninth. That combination gives it the most land per home of any community here.
What size are the lots?
The median parcel measures 10,818 square feet, the largest of the thirty-three Lake Forest communities on this site where a parcel median describes a detached lot rather than shared ground. The next largest, San Rita Ridge, measures 9,382.
When was Montbury laid out?
Three subdivision maps were recorded inside the boundary, one on February 27, 1981 and two in 1984, all engineered by Church Engineering Inc. The city's build year layer places 57.9 acres of building footprint in the 1981 to 1990 band.
Which schools serve Montbury?
The city's property record names Lake Forest Elementary, Serrano Intermediate and El Toro High for all 263 addresses inside the boundary, with no split at any level. All three are Saddleback Valley Unified campuses.
How much open space is inside the boundary?
The city's land use layer sets 24.6 acres to open space and 5.3 more to regional park and open space, and the zoning layer still records eighteen acres as A1 agricultural. The Aliso Creek Trail runs through the community, and 9.6 of the 135.5 acres sit in FEMA flood zone AE.