Aptos Village, Aptos, CA

Aptos Village in Aptos started out as a polo ground for a Victorian resort hotel, and the open fields are still the first thing you notice. The hotel was a Claus Spreckels project from the late 1800s, and the playing fields were dedicated with a match in 1924. Polo Grounds County Park now hosts local leagues. The village center is a small cluster of restaurants, wine rooms and shops around Parade Street and Soquel Drive. Aptos Village homes sit on the wooded streets around it, a mix of older cottages and newer infill, with Vienna Woods and Cabrillo as the nearest neighboring pockets. The area reads as a village first and a subdivision second, because the shops are the center of gravity. Eating and drinking happen close to home. Cat & Cloud Coffee at 10 Parade Street has high ceilings, an open-air feel and a start around 6:30 in the morning. Cafe Sparrow does French food, Aptos St. BBQ is the smoke-and-sides stop, and Armitage Wines at Heart O'the Mountain is where people settle in for a tasting. New Leaf Community Market covers everyday groceries without leaving the village, so a quick run for dinner ingredients rarely needs a long drive. For anything bigger, Soquel Drive runs east and west, and Highway 1 is a few minutes off. The entrance road to the Forest of Nisene Marks starts at the village and heads four miles up Aptos Creek. Event weekends change the feel. The Santa Cruz Blues Festival fills Aptos Village Park every Memorial Day weekend, and on those days parking is scarce and Soquel Drive slows down. The rest of the year the village is calm. Living here means having a small downtown a few minutes from your door, with the fields as a front lawn. If you like to hear a ballgame carry across the grass on a spring evening and then walk to a table, this is where that happens in Aptos.