Arcadia Highlands, Arcadia, CA

Arcadia Highlands climbs from the busy flats of Arcadia up toward the San Gabriel Mountains, and the higher you go, the quieter and steeper it gets. Homes up the hill are single-family houses on quarter-acre to half-acre lots, a mix of one-story ranch homes, California bungalows, Craftsman designs and traditional houses, many with professionally kept yards. Streets are wide and curving, with mature trees, and some grades are steep enough to notice on foot. Wilderness Park on Highland Oaks Drive is the local nature preserve, about 120 acres of native plants and shaded paths at the top of the neighborhood. Sierra Vista Park on Sierra Madre Boulevard is the easier option for a playground and lawn. For bigger hikes, Santa Anita Avenue keeps climbing into the mountains toward the Chantry Flats trailheads. Downtown Arcadia is the neighborhood's kitchen. Goldstein's Bagel Bakery on North Santa Anita Avenue has been baking bagels for about three decades and runs a drive-thru each morning. Hyper Coffee on South 1st Avenue pairs specialty drinks and sandwiches with a covered patio. Errands mostly happen along Foothill Boulevard, where Ralphs Fresh Fare anchors a plaza of cafes and takeout. The Metro A Line stops at Arcadia Station near 1st Avenue and Santa Clara, which opened in 2016 and runs to Pasadena and downtown Los Angeles, and the 210 Freeway cuts across the lower half of the neighborhood. The tradeoff is the split personality. Up the hill you'll drive for nearly everything, and down near Huntington Drive you trade that quiet for traffic and freeway hum. Buying in Arcadia Highlands means picking which end suits you, with the mountains always filling the view to the north.