Seaside Highlands, Seaside, CA

Seaside Highlands is the big, spread-out east side of Seaside, built on former Fort Ord land east of General Jim Moore Boulevard. Its streets cover more than five square miles, with only about 1,900 homes among golf fairways, open ground and a university campus. Homes here are single-family houses on planned streets, many with homeowner association dues, and because the land rolls, some streets look out toward the ocean. It reads as a planned district, quite different from the older grid to the west, and the quiet streets are a distinct change after Fremont Boulevard. Golf shapes the landscape. Bayonet and Black Horse, both laid out on former Fort Ord ground, share a clubhouse and grill at 1 McClure Way, the nearest sit-down meal. Black Horse dates to 1964. Each August the Concorso Italiano car show fills the grounds for a Saturday during Monterey Car Week. Fort Ord National Monument reaches the edge of the neighborhood, and a trailhead on Gigling Road leads in. The trails there are open to hikers, riders and cyclists. The paved trail along the beach at Fort Ord Dunes is also within reach. California State University, Monterey Bay anchors the northern end and gives it a weekday pulse the residential streets elsewhere lack. Its Library Cafe pours coffee, tea and smoothies and sells pastries and sandwiches. Past campus, eating out generally means driving down to Fremont Boulevard in the older part of town. The base commissary sits within the neighborhood, and the nearest everyday grocery stops are in the older part of the city. General Jim Moore Boulevard and Highway 1 do most of the connecting. The distances are the compromise. Nothing in Seaside Highlands is close to anything else, so every errand, every coffee and every dinner out starts the car. In return, the open land of the former base is right behind the houses, with trails and fairways in place of neighbors.