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palo alto neighborhood guide · property nerds® at compass
Evergreen Park, Palo Alto Homes for sale, recent sales and a Property Nerd’s guide
Central Palo Alto between El Camino Real and the Caltrain tracks: older homes and apartments on a tight grid, Peers Park, and car-free California Avenue, once the main street of the town of Mayfield.
Evergreen Park by the numbers
evergreen park by the numbers · live from the mls
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Calculated in your browser from MLS data for Evergreen Park: El Camino Real to the tracks, Park Blvd to Page Mill Rd (city neighborhood outline). Sales are single-family homes, townhomes and condos.
homes in evergreen park · live from the mls
Homes for sale, for rent and recently sold in Evergreen Park
Every active listing, rental and closed sale in Evergreen Park from the MLS, updated automatically, with a map of the neighborhood outline.
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Listings come from MLSListings and other MLSs through IDX and show their listing brokerage; confirm details with the listing agent. The map outline is the neighborhood boundary used by our listing search (Evergreen Park: El Camino Real to the tracks, Park Blvd to Page Mill Rd (city neighborhood outline)); it may not match every local definition.
the story
How Evergreen Park came to be
Evergreen Park sits on the oldest town site inside today's Palo Alto. Mayfield grew up around what is now the corner of California Avenue and El Camino Real starting in 1855, and its main street became the California Avenue business district, according to a 2019 historic-resources memo prepared for the city. When Leland Stanford was planning his university in the 1880s, he wanted a dry college town. Mayfield, with 13 saloons, said no, so his associate Timothy Hopkins laid out University Park on 740 acres to the northwest. That town incorporated as Palo Alto in 1894.
Mayfield began banning saloons in 1905 anyway, and in 1925 Palo Alto voters agreed to annex it. Local names still point back to the old town. Peers Park honors Alexander Peers, a Mayfield resident for 59 years who co-founded the Page and Peers Lumber Company with William Page. Page Mill Road, the neighborhood's southern edge, was built to haul their logs down from the foothill mill to Mayfield, according to the city's park history. Peers also sat on Mayfield's first Board of Trustees and was the first president of Mayfield Bank.
The names overlap. Local news profiles have described Evergreen Park as the blocks between California Avenue, Park Boulevard and El Camino Real, and the blocks from College Avenue south to Oregon Expressway as Mayfield. The city's neighborhood map rolls both into one Evergreen Park, from the Southgate line to Page Mill Road, and so does this guide. The civic side has changed fast: the City Council decided in 2025 to keep the California Avenue business district, from El Camino Real to Birch Street, car-free for good, and the city's new three-story Public Safety Building at 250 Sherman Avenue received its certificate of occupancy in August 2025, across the street from the 627-space California Avenue garage that opened in December 2020.
streets and homes
The streets and the houses
The grid is easy to read. Park Boulevard, Birch Street and Ash Street run parallel to El Camino Real. The cross streets, north to south, are Stanford, Leland, Oxford, College, Cambridge and California avenues, then Sherman, Grant and Sheridan avenues below California. Short Park Avenue and Serra Street meet El Camino near the Southgate corner, and the Caltrain tracks close off the east side. Park Boulevard is one of the city's bike boulevards.
Housing is a true mix, which is what you'd expect on a town site that dates to 1855. A 2017 local news profile described the homes as eclectic in size, style and lot size, with many of the original two-bedroom houses expanded or replaced by larger ones, and counted about 206 single-family homes and 178 multifamily units, per the neighborhood association. South of California Avenue the picture flips: apartments and condos line Grant and Sheridan avenues, shops and restaurants fill the California Avenue district, and civic buildings sit on Sherman Avenue.
What you can build depends on the parcel's zone, and here zones change block by block. On the city's GIS zoning layer, the blocks north of California Avenue are mostly R-1 (single-family), with R-2 (two-unit) and multifamily zoning along parts of College and Leland avenues. In R-1, Palo Alto's code sets a 6,000-square-foot minimum lot, a 30-foot height limit and a floor-area allowance of 45 percent of the first 5,000 square feet of lot plus 30 percent of the rest, capped at 6,000 square feet. The California Avenue commercial zones, a small pedestrian- and transit-oriented (PTOD) area near Birch, Grant and Sheridan, and the multifamily zones near Oregon Expressway allow more, so check the exact parcel on the city's zoning map before you plan a remodel or rebuild.
streets in evergreen park
- Park Boulevard
- Birch Street
- Ash Street
- Stanford Avenue
- Leland Avenue
- Oxford Avenue
- College Avenue
- Cambridge Avenue
- California Avenue
- Sherman Avenue
- Grant Avenue
- Sheridan Avenue
- Park Avenue
- Serra Street
parks and places
Parks, shops and landmarks near Evergreen Park
- park
Peers Park
A 4.7-acre city park at 1899 Park Boulevard with tennis and basketball courts, soccer fields, playgrounds, a big lawn, restrooms and a dog park. Behind the tennis courts, the Challenger Memorial Grove of redwoods grew from seeds that flew aboard the space shuttle Challenger in 1985.
- shopping
California Avenue
The neighborhood's main street, car-free between El Camino Real and Birch Street, with restaurants, shops and outdoor dining. A year-round farmers market sets up on Sunday mornings.
- transit
California Avenue Caltrain station
Inside the neighborhood at the east end of California Avenue, so every block is within roughly 0.6 mile of a train (straight-line, approximate).
- landmark
Public Safety Building and California Avenue garage
The three-story Public Safety Building at 250 Sherman Avenue houses the police department, 911 dispatch and the city's emergency operations center. Across the street, the public garage at 350 Sherman Avenue has 627 spaces on four levels above ground and two below.
- park
Sarah Wallis Park
A small neighborhood park at 202 Ash Street, south of California Avenue.
schools and commute
School districts and getting around
School districts
Evergreen Park is in the Palo Alto Unified School District, which assigns elementary, middle and high schools by address. No PAUSD campus sits inside the city's Evergreen Park boundary. Attendance boundaries change, so check the exact address with PAUSD before you rely on a particular school.
Getting around
- California Avenue Caltrain station is inside the neighborhood; Palo Alto's University Avenue station is about 1.5 miles northwest (straight-line, approximate).
- VTA Route 22 and Rapid 522 run along El Camino Real between the Palo Alto Transit Center and Eastridge in San Jose; VTA Route 89 connects California Avenue Caltrain with the Palo Alto VA hospital via Page Mill Road and El Camino.
- Page Mill Road leads west past Stanford Research Park toward I-280; Oregon Expressway leads east to US-101.
- Park Boulevard is a city bike boulevard, and the 3.4-mile Stanford Perimeter Trail runs along the Stanford side of El Camino Real and Stanford Avenue.
- Stanford land begins directly across El Camino Real; the Main Quad is about 1.4 miles from the neighborhood's center (straight-line, approximate).
nerd notes
Buying or selling in Evergreen Park: what we check
Buying here
- Confirm the zone for the exact parcel. One block can hold R-1, R-2, multifamily and commercial lots, and the city's zoning map, not the listing, decides what you can add or rebuild.
- Check whether the block is in the Evergreen Park-Mayfield permit parking program: without a permit, parking on participating blocks is limited to two hours, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays, and each dwelling unit can buy up to five annual permits.
- Visit at commute time and on a Sunday morning. Homes near the tracks, the station, El Camino Real or Page Mill Road hear more trains and traffic, and farmers market days fill nearby streets.
- On older houses, ask for a sewer lateral video, look hard at the foundation and electrical panel, and pull the permit history for past additions.
- For condos and townhomes, read the HOA documents, reserve study and parking assignments; for R-1 lots, ask the city about ADU and SB 9 options before you count on them.
Selling here
- Give buyers measured distances to the Caltrain platform, Peers Park and California Avenue rather than adjectives; they are the neighborhood's strongest facts.
- Pull permits for any additions or ADUs and state the parcel's zone, since buyers on a mixed-zone street will ask what the lot allows.
- If the block is in the permit parking program, have guest permits and instructions ready for open houses.
- Avoid scheduling an open house against the Sunday farmers market without a parking plan; nearby streets fill up.
nerd noteCommissions are always negotiable, and we offer bundled services, so ask us what's included.
faq
Evergreen Park questions, answered
Is Evergreen Park the same as Mayfield?
They overlap. Mayfield was the town that grew up around California Avenue and El Camino Real from 1855 until Palo Alto annexed it in 1925. Local profiles use Evergreen Park for the blocks north of California Avenue and Mayfield for the blocks from College Avenue south to Oregon Expressway, while the city's neighborhood map calls the whole area Evergreen Park.
What are Evergreen Park's boundaries?
On the city's neighborhood map: El Camino Real on the west, the Caltrain tracks on the east, Page Mill Road and Oregon Expressway on the south, and Park Boulevard and the Southgate line on the north.
How close is Caltrain?
California Avenue station is inside the neighborhood, at the east end of California Avenue. No part of the neighborhood is more than about 0.6 mile away (straight-line, approximate).
Is there permit parking in Evergreen Park?
Yes, on participating blocks. The Evergreen Park-Mayfield program requires a permit to park more than two hours between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. on weekdays. Check the city's program map for a specific block.
Can owners here add a unit or rebuild?
It depends on the zone. Most single-family blocks are R-1, where Palo Alto's floor-area, height and setback rules apply and ADUs are generally possible, while some lots along College and Leland avenues are zoned for two or more units. Confirm the exact parcel with the city's planning department.
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