Hillsborough

City, San Mateo County

© McCormack's Guides

 

Zip Code: 94010

Renowned for its wealth, this San Mateo town of 11,272 residents in many ways lives up to its reputation but it does not overwhelm. www.mccormacks.com

The mansions are there, gorgeous creatures, but many of the homes can be described as upper-middle-class comfortable, ranchers, Tudors, Mediterraneans and at least one A-frame, large and elegant.

A town for tycoons and heirs of tycoons ... yes. But also a town for doctors and lawyers and Silicon Valley strivers and the ordinary rich. An ethnically diverse city that in recent years has welcomed many Asians and Asian-Americans.

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The trees are tall and full and numerous, pines, redwoods, eucalyptuses. The lawns are tended with loving care, putting-green quality. The landscaping is lush and imaginative and often pressed into the service of privacy. Much of Hillsborough hides behind tall hedges.

No noisy leaf blowers on Saturdays. Town law. Disturbs peace of weekends. Just about built out. Added about 200 residents in the 1990s and between 2000 and 2007 took on another 300.

Residences in 2008 numbered 3,889 — single homes 3,868, single attached 12, multiples 9, and no mobile homes. www.mccormacks.com

Median age of residents is 46. Kids under 18 account for 25 percent of inhabitants; over 55 years, 33 percent. Many a head is gray in this town.

Hillsborough Elementary School District, three elementaries and Crocker Middle School. Scores are in the 97^th to 99^th percentile, the top three percent in state. Several years ago, Crocker Middle School, was named by the Swedish Academy of Sciences as one of the four best on the planet. See Schools.

A schools foundation and a parents club raise over $3 million a year for the schools. The parents club asks parents to contribute a certain amount for each child, in effect a parental tax (similar “taxes” can be found in many high-income communities.) Parents also volunteer time for the schools.

Annual Concours d'Elegance (car show) raises money for schools. Hillsborough residents impose a parcel tax upon themselves to pay for school programs.

Spanish taught at all grade levels. Specialists for math, science and reading. Geometry at middle school, which also has a TV studio. www.mccormacks.com

In 2002, voters approved a $67 million bond for the elementary district, the money to be spent as the need arose. In 2007, the district was spending $18 million to renovate classrooms and other facilities.

San Mateo Union High School District. Teenagers favor San Mateo High or Burlingame High, scores generally in the 80th and 90th percentiles. In 2000, a bond was passed to renovate these schools. San Mateo High, for earthquake safety, was rebuilt, the job finished in 2005.

About 20 percent of the students, Hillsborough school district reports, attend private high schools.

One of the lowest crime rates in California but not immune to violence. Zero homicides in 2005. In 2004, two men killed a woman while robbing her home. No suspects arrested. Zero homicides from 1999-2002, one in 1998 and zero from 1984-1997. In 1998, a local woman was kidnapped and murdered. Suspect convicted in 2002. See Crime.

Compared to what others endure, commute not bad. Interstate 280 runs along the top of Hillsborough, about 21 miles to the Bay Bridge. Adjoining Burlingame has a train depot; trains and buses to downtown San Francisco. San Francisco International can be reached within 10-15 minutes by driving nearby Highway 101. BART station at Millbrae. www.mccormacks.com

The City of Hillsborough doesn’t have a recreation department. Town and school district combine to run sports programs for the kids, and the school grounds serve as playing fields. One park. Some homes have tennis courts and pools; many have recreation or family rooms. One golf course, the venerable Burlingame, a second just outside city limits, to the west.

The College of San Mateo (many programs and rec classes) is located on the southern border. Miles of hiking trails can be found at Crystal Springs Reservoir, just west of Highway 280.

In 1892, the scions of the mining and railroad pioneers and other tycoons — the Crockers, the Tobins, the Spreckels, the Pullmans — formed the Burlingame Country Club following the Chevy Chase model: large course with opulent clubhouse, surrounded by country estates. Hillsborough was meant to be a country retreat, an alternative to the foggy winds and bustle of The City. Residents whacked the ball, chased the fox and galloped their polo ponies.

When the 1906 earthquake struck, many of the great mansions of the City were lost, and with the competition cleared, Hillsborough’s reputation ascended as THE town of the wealthy. Hillsborough incorporated as a city in 1910 and passed zoning laws forbidding almost all businesses.

The laws remain in force. Hillsborough businesses number only about a half dozen, including the golf course, a racquet club, and several private schools or day-care centers, city officials report. Residents do most of their shopping at neighboring Burlingame, which has tony shops along Broadway. www.mccormacks.com

For municipal chores, mainly fire protection and police, residents pay an annual parcel tax in addition to the property tax. Local group has raised funds to fix up street islands, and groom the roads, school grounds and park.

Up until 1940s, Hillsborough luxuriated in semi-isolation, its residences numbering fewer than 400. After the war, a great boom swept over San Mateo County. Hillsborough added 1,100 homes in the 1950s, 725 in the 1970s, about 350 in the 1980s. In the boom, Hillsborough built mainly for the well-to-do, not the super wealthy. The low-slung rancher, popular in the 1950s, can be found in many parts of the city.

In the last decade housing starts fell to 150. Between 2000 and 2007, Hillsborough built 59 homes.

• A town that knows how to count. In 2006, Standard and Poor raised the rating on bonds for the elementary district from AA+ to AAA. Newspaper reported that it was only school district in the state with an AAA.

• In 1916, the grandest mansion in Hillsborough was opened, Carolands, built by a railroad heiress. It was situated on the highest hill in town, had an estate of 500 acres and 98 rooms and was designed along the lines of a French chateau. The heiress ran into marital problems, divorced,  stopped living at Carolands and sold the place in the 1940s. Expensive to upkeep, Carolands passed to other owners, who subdivided the property and retained about six acres for the mansion. In the 1980s, Carolands hit bottom, empty, vandalized, and murderous: a caretaker invited two teen girls for a tour, assaulted them sexually and stabbed one to death. In the early 1990s, Ann Johnson, a Hillsborough resident, toured the place and fell in love with it. About seven years passed, Carolands went into another crisis that seemed to spell destruction. Johnson, a retired pyschiatrist, had married a fellow who improved his dad's business, a big stock brokerage, giving Carol just what the Carolands needed, loads of money. She bought the estate, spent about $20 million on restoration and moved in. She says her 17 grand kids love to run around the place. The mansion has been given historical status. Johnson is trying to set up a foundation to support it and work with the city to establish a small school for Beaux Arts. Two problems: neighbors don't like traffic and Hillsborough doesn't like businesses. Johnson, presumably, will seek compromises. Several times a year, the Johnsons host fundraisers for the opera and other civic or cultural endeavors.

City web site: www.hillsborough.net