Scotts Valley, CA

Scotts Valley is the small city at the top of Highway 17, where the Santa Cruz Mountains flatten into a bowl of valley floor. Santa Cruz is about six miles south and San Jose roughly thirty to the north. The place began as a stagecoach stop between those two towns and takes its name from Hiram Scott, who bought land here out of an old Mexican grant. Residents voted to incorporate in 1966, partly out of concern over annexation by Santa Cruz and plans for the airport at Skypark. Since then the city has kept a small-town scale, with redwood forest pressing in from every side. Houseberry tracks a single neighborhood here, so the whole city reads as one place organized around a few anchors. Kings Village, a shopping center the Ow family developed in the 1960s, is the informal town center, with restaurants and a movie theater. Hotels sit beside the highway, and single-family streets on wooded lots dominate the housing. Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park lies just past the city line, with camping, hiking and horse trails. On the valley floor, Siltanen Community Park handles everyday play and picnics. For a meal out, Bruno's Bar and Grill is known for burgers and weekly wing specials, with pool, darts and trivia nights in the mix. Rumble Fish does sushi and fresh seafood, and The Redwood Sandwich Co. Has patio seating for lunch. Inversion Wines pours with live music on weekends. People also drive in for the Canepa Motorsports Museum, where rare cars and motorcycles restored by Bruce Canepa can be seen on booked tours. Daily life in Scotts Valley runs on a car. The city is compact, so most destinations sit a few miles apart. Silicon Valley's office parks lie over the summit and Santa Cruz is down the grade, which puts the city between two job centers, and the highway fills at peak hours in both directions. For all that, Scotts Valley still reads as a place of redwoods, ball fields and Fourth of July crowds.