Agoura Hills, CA

Kanan Road is the street that ties Agoura Hills together, running from the shopping centers beside the Ventura Freeway south through the Santa Monica Mountains to the Malibu coast. Ranch houses and two-story tracts line looping streets north and south of the freeway, and most lots leave room for a real backyard. Custom homes sit higher up on the canyon edges, and on a few hillside streets a newer house stands between neighbors that came through the Woolsey Fire, a sign of how much rebuilding the last few years have brought. Open land starts where the subdivisions stop. The mountains rise behind the southern neighborhoods, Malibu Creek State Park is a short drive away for longer hikes and creek walks, and at Liberty Canyon the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing is taking shape so mountain lions can move between the ranges. Agoura Road and Kanan Road carry most of the dining. Adobe Cantina serves Mexican plates in an open-air garden on Agoura Road, and Agoura's Famous Deli on Kanan opens early for breakfast and turns out sandwiches and catering platters all day. For coffee and a slow brunch, people meet at Sunrose California Eatery. Almost every errand is a quick drive, and the big grocery stores cluster along Kanan and Canwood Street close to the freeway. The 101 is the tradeoff that shapes the week. Fire weather is the other constant, since brush covers the same slopes that keep the town feeling open. What sticks with people who live in Agoura Hills is how quickly the scenery turns over. A few curves past the last stoplight on Kanan, the road is already climbing through chaparral toward the ocean.