Bixby Hill, Long Beach, CA

Bixby Hill in Long Beach is a guard-gated rise of curving streets built around Rancho Los Alamitos, the old Bixby family ranch that the city now runs as a free museum. The rancho itself anchors the neighborhood. Its adobe ranch house dates to the 1790s, and four acres of historic gardens surround it, shaped in part by Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. and the landscape team of Florence Yoch and Lucile Council. Visitors come in Wednesday through Sunday afternoons, so weekday mornings on the hill stay very still. Homes behind the gate are mostly custom single-family houses from the 1970s, set on generous lots along cul-de-sacs, with townhomes and condos toward the edges. Mature landscaping gives the streets a settled, private feel. There are no storefronts, sidewalk cafes or through streets inside. For the outdoors, Bixby Village Golf Course sits a short drive south near the marina, and the Earl Burns Miller Japanese Garden is on the Cal State Long Beach campus just to the west. Recreation Park, with its two golf courses and tennis center, is a few minutes farther. Food and errands happen outside the gate. The corner of 7th Street and Pacific Coast Highway has Mad Dumplings and Trung Nguyen E-Coffee for a quick bite or a Vietnamese coffee, and the Whole Foods and Trader Joe's near Second Street cover the weekly shop. Seaside Creamery on Palo Verde Avenue is the easy ice cream run. Every trip starts with a drive past the guardhouse, and there is nothing to walk to for dinner. Living on Bixby Hill means the gardens next door are open to everyone a few afternoons a week, and the rest of the time the fig trees and ranch barns feel close to private.