Escaya, Chula Vista, CA

Escaya is Otay Ranch's Village 3, the youngest-looking part of southern Chula Vista, set along Heritage Road with Olympic Parkway to the north and Main Street to the south. HomeFed opened it in 2017 on about 450 acres, and its roughly 950 homes went up quickly enough that the whole village still reads as one piece. Builders here worked in a look the developer branded New Heritage, which borrows from Spanish, farmhouse and ranch houses. Detached homes came in nine collections from three builders, Brookfield, CalAtlantic and Shea, and townhome rows fill the blocks closer to the village center. Sizes run from compact attached plans to detached houses near 3,700 square feet. Escaya Park is the shared front yard, an eight-acre lawn with room for six youth soccer practices at once, a basketball court, an adventure play structure and a grassy slope used as an amphitheater. Residents also get the Orchard Club, a private swim club with a lap pool, a recreation pool, cabanas and a clubhouse, plus the Harvest Wellness Center for workouts. Sesame Place San Diego and the North Island Credit Union Amphitheatre sit just outside the boundary to the west. The Shops at Escaya, on Avenida Escaya, give the village its own small main street. Yaqui Coffee House is the morning stop, with Sonora-inspired drinks like a horchata latte with double espresso and cacao nibs, and croissant sandwiches filled with chilorio and eggs. Escaya Wine and Spirits, a few doors down, handles the bottle runs. For groceries and most other errands, residents drive. Barons Market and the rest of Otay Ranch Town Center are a couple of miles east, and residents reach the freeways by way of Olympic Parkway. Village life here keeps early hours. Yaqui closes at 1 p.m. and stays dark on Mondays, and an evening out means driving to the Town Center or Millenia. What the neighborhood does well is the short walk, with park, pool and coffee all a few minutes from most front doors.