Country Club, Escondido, CA

Country Club fills Escondido's northwest edge, north of El Norte Parkway and west of I-15, with San Marcos right over the western line. The name comes from the Escondido Country Club golf course, which closed in 2013, and the long fight over what would replace it shaped the neighborhood for years. Homes come in two eras. Most streets hold single-story ranch houses and 1990s stucco homes, many with red tile roofs and no HOA, and a scattering of 1960s houses that have been remodeled over the decades. On the old fairways, Lennar's Canopy Grove began selling in 2020 and added about 380 newer homes in Spanish, Craftsman and farmhouse styles, with green buffers kept between them and the backyards that once looked out on the course. Canopy Grove brought its own three parks, walking paths and a Basecamp with a pool and fitness center. For everyone else, Helen Bougher Park sits just across the San Marcos line, and Rod McLeod Park, across the freeway in North Broadway, looks down over the whole valley from its hilltop. El Norte Parkway is where the neighborhood eats. Blue Mug Coffee & Tea has been a gathering spot for more than a decade, with organic drip coffee and breakfast sandwiches on croissants. In the same plaza at Country Club Lane, Cenote Grill turns out agave lime shrimp plates and Thai chicken burritos, and it closes on Sundays and Mondays. Farther east, Safari Coffee Roasters has been selling its own coffees since 1990 from the center by the freeway. Groceries mean the Vons at the I-15 end of El Norte, and San Marcos shopping is just west. Breeze routes 358 and 359 stop at El Norte Parkway Plaza, and the I-15 interchange makes the drive south to downtown or north toward Temecula simple. Most of what Country Club residents need is a drive away. Outside the two El Norte plazas the neighborhood is all houses, and walking errands are rare. Years after the last round of golf, the green strips behind the older homes on the former course are still the clearest trace of the club the neighborhood is named for.