Deer Park, Fairfax, CA

Deer Park sits on the south side of Fairfax, where Bolinas Road heads toward the creek and Porteous Avenue climbs to the trailhead that gave the neighborhood its name. Lanes such as Creek Road, Forrest Avenue, Barker Avenue and Hillside Drive wind under redwoods and bay trees, and the Forrest Avenue area spills over the line into San Anselmo. Houses are a mix of cottages and wood-sided homes tucked among the trees, many on lanes that do not connect through. Some sit beside the creek and others look down on it from the slope, so the sound of water is common in the wet months. The Deer Park Trailhead is the reason many hikers come. From downtown it is half a mile south on Bolinas Road, then left onto Porteous Avenue. The Deer Park Fire Road leads into the Mount Tamalpais watershed, and one popular loop of about 2.8 miles climbs through redwoods to open grassland with views of the mountain. Longer routes reach Phoenix Lake. Doc Edgar Park gives the neighborhood a small green space of its own. Bolinas Road is also where the eating happens. Sorella Caffe serves Northern Italian dishes such as cioppino, La Gastronomia di Porchetta sells porchetta sandwiches, and 123 Bolinas is a candlelit wine bar known for oysters. Java Hut covers coffee, and all of these are within a few minutes of Deer Park's lanes. The farmers market on Wednesday evenings and the organic grocery near downtown cover most errands. For a full supermarket, the Red Hill shopping center in San Anselmo is the closer choice. Buses run along Sir Francis Drake, a short drive or ride from the lanes. If you hike here, know that the trailhead lot is small and fills early, so a morning start works better than a late one. From the end of a lane it is only minutes to the fire road, and the route keeps going toward the ridge.