Professorville, Palo Alto

With its turn of the 19th Century homes and streets named after famous Americans (Melville, Whitman, Lincoln are some of the east west streets; north-south you get Brits like Cowper, Webster and Byron), Professorville is one of those quaint historic neighborhoods that seems better suited to the Ivy League than the West Coast.

The leafy streets fronting the large homes have a pleasant and quiet feeling. The homes—like Copeland House, Angell House and Nathan House—are old classic homes themselves and examples of Colonial Revival and early Craftsman style homes.

Of course, finding a place to live here and doing so at an affordable price is pretty impossible. Given its proximity to campus, the beautiful vintage homes and high cost of Palo Alto to begin with, Professorville is pretty impossible as a real estate market.

Not to mention that you are also so close to Downtown Palo Alto that you can walk to a great restaurant, or go to a Hookah bar, or work out at the gym.

St. Anne’s Chapel, with its Spanish Revival style architecture is also here so you can also attend midnight mass without getting in your car.

And, as in other parts of Palo Alto, it goes without saying that the schools here are just amazing.

Professorville is the kind of neighborhood that makes the world feel like a quiet orderly place where ideas can be mulled over in the quiet of your sitting room, or perhaps in your library while your butler refills your tea cup—though I’m really not sure what kind of professor can afford to live here. Certainly no one from the adjunct faculty.