Fairmeadow, Palo Alto Homes for sale, recent sales and a Property Nerd’s guide

The rings are Roosevelt Circle, Redwood Circle and Starr King Circle, with Carlson Circle tucked against the school land; Bryant Street, Ramona Street and South Court run through them, and Lindero Drive and Wright Place fill the corners near Alma and Charleston. Roosevelt and Redwood circles alone account for more than 120 homes on the city's parcel layer. An Eichler publication describes the plan as a series of interlocking circles and calls the layout maze-like, so trust the map more than your sense of direction.

The houses are early Eichlers: single story, post-and-beam, on concrete slabs with radiant heating pipes, with glass walls opening to the back yard and a more closed face to the street. They are smaller and simpler than the Greenmeadow models of a few years later, which a 2019 report in an Eichler publication notes makes them more prone to change. Lots are compact for Palo Alto, mostly 6,000 to 8,400 square feet with a median near 6,200. Walk the circles and you'll see near-original houses, remodels with new roofs and glass, second-story additions, and about a dozen homes with build dates after 1990.

Zoning is plain R-1 throughout, with no single-story overlay. A resident push for an overlay around 2008-2010 stalled after planners said it should cover the whole tract, according to an Eichler publication. Second-story additions and two-story new homes go through the city's Single-Family Individual Review, and the city's 2018 Eichler design guidelines apply as voluntary guidance; in January 2019 the City Council approved a two-story replacement for an Eichler on one of the circles after an appeal.