Overview
About Riviera District
Riviera District covers 28.7 acres and holds 114 addresses on 115 parcels, at a median parcel of 0.18 acres, which makes it the smallest of the fifty San Clemente communities mapped here by area. Twelve streets serve it and the naming looks across the Mediterranean: Calle Monte Carlo, Calle Monaco, Calle Majorca, Calle Madiera, Calle Capri, Calle Monte Cristo and Avenida de la Riviera, alongside Avenida La Costa, Plaza a la Playa and Calle Las Palmas.
Residential Low Density land accounts for 28.6 of the 28.7 acres. Of the boundary, 19.6 acres fall inside a coastal canyon the city maps and 2.9 inside coastal bluff. The state fire hazard severity map reaches only that same 19.6 acres and rates all of it Moderate, the mildest of the three classes used in San Clemente. Capistrano Unified's own school locator returned San Clemente High, Shorecliffs Middle and Concordia Elementary at all five interior points tested.
View available homes in Riviera DistrictHistory
How Riviera District was built
The Riviera District is a small pocket of southwest San Clemente, and the street signs read like a list of Mediterranean resorts. Capri, Majorca, Monaco, Monte Carlo and Madiera all appear within a few blocks of each other. That register is exactly the one Ole Hanson set for the whole town when he announced in the Los Angeles Examiner on 8 November 1925 that he intended to build his own Spanish village by the sea. Every sales contract in the young town required Spanish Colonial Revival, hand made red tile roofs and whitewashed stucco walls, and every set of plans went to an architectural committee before a shovel moved. Those rules were abandoned in 1937, and the houses standing here today went up from the late 1950s onward, long after they lapsed.
The best story on this hillside belongs to the man who ran the town. Thomas F. Murphine, San Clemente's first mayor and one of the three men on that first architectural committee, built himself a two story house with terraces, balconies and a circular tower study on the slope above Avenida de los Lobos Marinos. On 10 March 1933 the Long Beach earthquake opened a large fissure in the home site. The house creaked for two months and then collapsed into it, leaving only the rooftop visible. Nothing else in San Clemente was seriously damaged, and the city's own historic survey puts the blame on unstable soil and the watering of Murphine's gardens. A surviving portion of the house was relocated to San Clemente State Beach.
By the Numbers
Riviera District by the numbers
Lifestyle
The Riviera District lifestyle
San Clemente keeps ten beaches of its own along the shore, from North Beach past the pier to Riviera, and the city's Marine Safety division staffs them. The pier itself carries restrooms, metered parking, fire rings and the Amtrak and Metrolink platform at its foot.
The city publishes five trail networks that run from the sand up into the canyons and along the ridgelines. Bikes are welcome on all of them, electric bikes are not allowed on the Beach Trail, dogs are welcome on a leash, and horses are permitted on the Forster Ridgeline, Prima Deshecha and Cristianitos trails. City parks are open from 6 am to 10 pm without a reservation unless a group needs a permit.
Schools
Schools serving Riviera District
Capistrano Unified assigns Riviera District to San Clemente High, Shorecliffs Middle and Concordia Elementary. The district's own school locator returned the same assignment at every point tested inside the boundary, and enrollment comes from the federal count for 2024-25.
9-12 · 2,740 students
6-8 · 634 students
K-5 · 533 students
FAQs
Common questions about Riviera District
How big is Riviera District?
The boundary the city publishes covers 28.7 acres, with 114 addresses on 115 parcels at a median of 0.18 acres. It is the smallest of the fifty San Clemente communities mapped here by area.
Which schools serve Riviera District?
Capistrano Unified's school locator returned San Clemente High, Shorecliffs Middle and Concordia Elementary at all five points tested inside the boundary. Confirm the assignment for a specific address with the district before you rely on it.
How old is Riviera District?
The oldest recorded maps of any of the fifty communities here run beneath it: Tracts 822 and 852 from 1927, Tract 897 from 1928 and Tract 960 from 1930. The houses came later, on Tract 2964 of 1956, and the county assessor dates 107 parcels here between 1957 and 1989.
Is there anything historic in Riviera District?
The city's historic register places the 1928 municipal aqueduct on West Avenida de los Lobos Marinos inside the boundary, a surviving piece of San Clemente's original reservoir and municipal water works.
What is the fire hazard rating?
The state fire hazard severity map reaches 19.6 of the 28.7 acres and rates all of it Moderate, the mildest of the three classes used in San Clemente.