Davenport

Davenport is not a Santa Cruz neighborhood. It is a small unincorporated village of 388 people at the 2020 Census, sitting on Highway 1 about eleven miles up the coast from the city, and it has its own identity, its own history and its own character entirely. Anyone describing it as part of Santa Cruz has not spent time there.

Davenport History, Whaling and Cement

The name goes back to John Pope Davenport, a whaling captain who settled on the coast here in 1867 and built a wharf at what became Davenport Landing, a little north of the current town. The town you see today exists because of cement. The Santa Cruz Portland Cement Company built its plant here in 1906, and for more than a century it was the reason Davenport was here, a company town with worker cottages built around the works. St. Vincent de Paul Church on the hill was built in 1914 from the plant’s own cement, and the tiny two cell Davenport Jail from the same year now serves as a small museum.

CEMEX, which bought the operation in 2005, shut the plant down in 2010, taking jobs and activity with it. The future of the old plant site has been the subject of a long county planning process and is still being worked out, and that transition remains the central fact about Davenport today, so anyone buying here should understand where it stands.

Beaches, Trails and the North Coast

What remains is a village with a spectacular setting. The coastline north of Santa Cruz is some of the least developed in the state, with Davenport Beach and Shark Fin Cove close by and the cliffs running north toward Ano Nuevo. Wilder Ranch State Park sits between Davenport and the city, and Ano Nuevo State Park with its elephant seal colony is up the coast.

The biggest recent change is right at the edge of town. Cotoni-Coast Dairies, a Bureau of Land Management unit of the California Coastal National Monument, opened its first trails to the public in August 2025, with about nine miles of loops starting from a trailhead on Cement Plant Road. Whale City Bakery is the village institution, and on a weekend the town fills with cyclists, hikers and day trippers from over the hill.

Davenport Homes, Water and Septic

Housing is limited and mostly older, including original cottage stock built for plant workers, and inventory is thin enough that a year can pass with only a handful of sales. Homes inside the village get their water and sewer from the Davenport County Sanitation District, while rural parcels outside its boundaries usually rely on wells and septic systems. I check how a property is served, along with fire hazard mapping and insurance availability, before a client gets serious about any house up here.

Schools, Services and Getting Around

Davenport has its own tiny school district. Pacific Elementary School District runs Pacific School in the village, which dates to 1906 and serves preschool through sixth grade, and older students continue in the Santa Cruz City Schools system. Assignment can depend on the parcel, so I check rather than assume.

Getting anywhere means Highway 1 south into Santa Cruz, roughly fifteen to twenty minutes when the road is clear, and that single coastal highway occasionally closes for slides and accidents. Dominican Hospital on Soquel Drive is twenty to twenty five minutes away. Santa Cruz METRO runs a north coast bus route with limited trips, which is useful for anyone who no longer wants to drive that stretch.

Is Davenport a Good Fit for Downsizers?

I want to be clear with my own clients about what living here means as the years go on. Davenport is a real small community with real neighbors, and it is also more than ten miles from a full grocery store, a doctor’s office or the nearest senior center, which is the Downtown Senior Center at the London Nelson Community Center in Santa Cruz. If you drive comfortably and love the coast, it is a wonderful place. If driving has become difficult, it gets hard quickly, and there is essentially no condominium, townhome or 55 plus housing here to move into.

For many longtime owners the better plan is to sell the Davenport house and move closer to services, often in town on the Westside, which is the first part of Santa Cruz you reach coming south on Highway 1. If you are 55 or older, Proposition 19 may let you carry your current property tax base to that replacement home, and my downsizing page walks through how I plan a move like that.

The Davenport Housing Market

With so few sales in any given year, a town median is close to meaningless here. Redfin’s data for ZIP code 95017 showed a median sale price of about $1.2 million for its most recent reporting period, the three months ending February 2026, but that rested on a single sale. For context, the City of Santa Cruz ran about $1.35 million for the three months ending September 2026, and value in Davenport comes down to the specific property, its condition, its views and how it is served by water and septic. My guide to living in Santa Cruz covers the city, and neighboring Bonny Doon up the hill is the other rural market people usually compare with Davenport.

Frequently Asked Questions About Davenport

Selling a property in a small coastal village takes a different approach from selling in town, starting with finding the specific buyer who actually wants this life rather than the idea of it. If you are weighing whether to stay in Davenport or move closer to services, that is exactly the conversation I have with older adults and their families, without any pressure attached. Book a call with me and we can talk it through.