Chemeketa Park, Lexington Hills, CA

Chemeketa Park is a small, self-reliant mountain neighborhood of about 150 homes in Lexington Hills, in the Santa Cruz Mountains above Los Gatos. The community was laid out in the 1920s and has just passed its hundredth year, and that long memory shows in how people here look after the place. Houses differ from one lot to the next, with older places standing beside remodels and additions, so nothing reads as a subdivision pattern. Streets are narrow, shaded and quiet, and residents share a clubhouse and a playground. Only three roads serve the whole community, which is why emergency access gets so much attention from neighbors. For time outdoors, Bear Creek Redwoods Preserve is the closest large open space, a little over 1,400 acres with a stroller-friendly loop at Upper Lake and a handful of old-growth redwoods standing among younger trees. Lexington Reservoir County Park, a 950-acre park around a lake, is also close when you want water and a longer trail. Nothing to eat or drink sits inside the neighborhood. Pizzeria Vittoria is a few minutes away on Broadway Road, baking wood-fired pies and serving barbecue, beer and wine, with Mondays off. The Redwood Store on the same road stocks milk, produce and ice cream for the small stuff. What sets Chemeketa Park apart is how self-reliant it is. A mutual water company serves the homes, the clubhouse belongs to the community, and fire-safety work, including grant-funded thinning of the forest, is a shared project. Getting to the rest of the world means State Route 17 and the drive down into Los Gatos, where the supermarkets and services are. That shared responsibility is the real cost of living here. Water conservation notices, fire danger ratings and work days are part of the calendar, and the arrangement only works because neighbors keep showing up for each other.