Monta Loma

Monta Loma sits in northern Mountain View, bounded by San Antonio Road, Middlefield Road, Rengstorff Avenue and Central Expressway. It was built in the 1950s on former farmland, a truck farm that went by the name Italian Vegetable Gardens, and it is one of the most architecturally coherent mid-century neighborhoods left in the Bay Area. For a client who wants single level living with real design pedigree, this is close to the top of my list anywhere on the Peninsula.

The neighborhood is actually three tracts stitched together. Joseph Eichler built the Oakwood and Fairview sections, John Calder Mackay built another, and the Mardell Building Company built a third, which was originally called Mardell Manor before the Monta Loma name took hold over the whole area. Mackay’s model homes from 1955 and 1956 won a national award from Parents magazine for the best homes for families with children, and a deluxe model sold for $18,800 at the time. It remains one of the best preserved Mackay tracts anywhere.

What all three builders shared was a commitment to single story living with generous glass, open plans and an easy connection to the outdoors. That is exactly what makes these houses work for people in their seventies and eighties. There are no stairs, the doorways and hallways tend to be wider than in comparable tract homes of the era, and the light is genuinely good on a grey February afternoon. If stairs are the reason you are thinking about moving, Monta Loma deserves a look before you leave Mountain View entirely.

The neighborhood has an unusually strong civic streak. Monta Loma Park was completed in 1958, and Thaddeus Park was built in 1972 largely by residents doing the work themselves. The Monta Loma Neighborhood Association has been running since 1977 and remains active, which is worth knowing if you are the kind of person who wants neighbors who actually organize things.

There is real history under the ground here too. A Castro Indian shell mound stood in the area until 1947, when it was removed for topsoil, and the ancestral remains recovered from it were repatriated to Ohlone descendants by Stanford in 1989. On a lighter note, Steve Jobs lived with his family on Diablo Avenue in this neighborhood from 1959 to 1967, before the family moved to Los Altos and the garage entered company lore.

Schools run through Mountain View Whisman School District for the elementary and middle grades and the Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District for high school. Monta Loma Elementary sits within the neighborhood, though as always I confirm the actual assignment for a specific address rather than assuming the nearest school is the assigned one.

Getting around is easy. Central Expressway and San Antonio Road are right there, Highway 101 is a couple of minutes north, and the San Antonio Caltrain station is close enough to walk to from parts of the neighborhood. Downtown Mountain View and Castro Street are a short drive or a pleasant bike ride away, and the El Camino Health hospital campus on Grant Road is roughly ten minutes out.

On price, Mountain View ran a citywide median sale of about $1.8 million through the summer of 2026, up a little under three percent year over year, with homes going into contract at a median of around 19 days. Well preserved Eichler and Mackay homes in Monta Loma often trade above that figure, because the buyer pool for authentic mid-century architecture is national rather than local. My Mountain View home prices page tracks the trend, and the full Mountain View area guide covers the rest of the city.

If you own one of these houses and have been in it for decades, you are holding something that a specific and motivated set of buyers actively hunts for, and presenting it properly matters more here than in an ordinary tract. That is true whether you are selling now or simply want to understand what you have. Helping older adults and their families make these decisions is my full time work. Book a call with me for an honest assessment, or see how I prepare and market a home like this one.