Hillsdale

Hillsdale is one street of the same name, 61 addresses on 25 acres across 70 recorded parcels. It was approved as a planned community specifically so it could have private streets, two guard gates and a homeowners association maintaining the perimeter slopes, and the houses were planned at roughly 3,000 to 3,700 square feet. Twenty two of the acres are zoned Planned Community rather than to a standard lot size, and the median parcel measures 0.183 acres. None of the addresses carries a unit designator, so the housing is detached throughout.

The boundary touches Irvine Regional Park, 493 acres of county land with ball fields, equestrian and hiking trails, fishing, picnic areas, an interpretive center and the park's train rides, and Santiago Oaks Regional Park lies 568 feet beyond that. A ten foot equestrian easement runs along the northern boundary, negotiated with the Orange Park Acres homeowners association when the tract was approved, and a third of a mile of the city's own recreation trail network runs inside the boundary. Every parcel here is assigned to Linda Vista Elementary, Santiago Charter Middle and El Modena High.

The oak grove at the end of this street has been a destination for a very long time. German colonists who founded Anaheim in 1857 came out here to picnic under the sycamores and live oaks along Santiago Creek and called it the Picnic Grounds, on land that was part of Don Teodosio Yorba's Mexican grant, Rancho Lomas de Santiago. James Irvine bought out his partners and took sole ownership of the rancho in 1876, and on 5 October 1897 his son gave the 160 acre grove to Orange County for one dollar, on the condition that it always be kept looking as natural as possible and that the trees be given the fullest care. It was Orange County Park before it was Irvine Park, and it is still the oldest county park in California.

The neighborhood is late and deliberately small, sixty one houses on about twenty five acres north of Santiago Canyon Road, brought forward at the end of 1987 and finished the following year. It was planned as a gated community with private streets and its own association rather than as an ordinary subdivision, and the ground came out of Irvine Company holdings. The Orange Park Acres association negotiated a ten foot riding easement along the north edge when the tract was approved. There is one street, and it is called Hillsdale, which is what the site is.