California Heights, Long Beach, CA

California Heights is the city's largest historic district, and the one people picture when they think of old Long Beach, about 1,500 homes laid out in the 1920s after oil came in on nearby Signal Hill. A few of the oldest homes were moved here from downtown during the early years. The neighborhood association runs an annual home tour, which opens some of the best-kept interiors, and a summer block party. The restaurants sit on the edges of the grid. Rad Coffee on Atlantic and Steelhead Coffee on Wardlow Road handle the morning crowd, and Roxanne's pours cocktails on Wardlow after dark. Nonna Mercato, an Italian market and bakery, sits a little farther north on Atlantic. Green space is mostly nearby rather than inside the grid. Willow Springs Park on Orange Avenue has walking paths up to the Longview Point lookout, and the parks of Signal Hill are a short drive south. Monthly First Fridays along Atlantic in Bixby Knolls, just north, is an easy stroll for most of the neighborhood. Errands run along Atlantic Avenue, where the Dana Neighborhood Library and Island Pacific Seafood Market sit alongside the restaurants, and bigger grocery runs mean a short drive. Orange Avenue is the quieter spine through the middle. The tradeoff comes with the look itself. Owners who want to change windows, add a second story or rework a facade go through the historic review process, and some projects simply won't fly. Those rules are also why a California Heights street still looks the way it did when the first tile roofs went up.