St. Mary's College of California, Moraga, CA

This neighborhood is defined by Saint Mary's College, the Catholic liberal arts school whose Spanish Colonial Revival campus sits along St. Mary's Road on Moraga's eastern, more rural edge. The college sets the rhythm here: Gaels basketball and campus events bring energy to an otherwise quiet, semi-rural stretch of town. Away from the campus, the area thins out into the rolling ranchland and hillside that mark this end of the Moraga valley, with homes spread along St. Mary's Road rather than packed into a grid. It feels more open and countrified than the central neighborhoods, and the drive in past the campus is one of the prettier approaches in town. The tradeoffs are distance and, on game days and move-in weekends, college traffic on St. Mary's Road. The Rheem and Moraga shopping centers are a drive, and the commute is the standard Moraga haul over the hill to the freeway. For buyers who like the rural eastern setting and the steady presence of a college as a neighbor, this corner has a character the rest of Moraga does not.