The country club from which Belmont Country Club gets its name actually sat in Antique Forest Homes neighborhood. Belmont Country Club, located west of the $65,000 Belle Monti clubhouse (today the Congregational Church of Belmont, on Alameda de las Pulgas), was to be used for residential development. Nine decades later, it’s difficult to judge whether the plans were a success. This area is heavily developed, much more so than neighboring Belmont Woods, but the majority of building didn’t take place until the country club had long since disappeared.

In their wake is a large neighborhood whose housing diversity is the Belmont norm. Belmont Country Club contains perhaps the city’s most extensive collection of steep, winding roads, some named after Belmont pioneers (Sharon, Cipriani, Pullman), one of Belmont’s most isolated areas (the stretch of East Laurel Creek Road that runs alongside Laurelwood Park) and some orderly, almost Millbrae-like blocks of housing from 1950s and 1960s. These properties, part of a neighborhood called “Plateau-Skymont,” have three and four bedrooms. Recent listings show them asking anywhere from $1.8 to $3.0 million on the open market. Mixed in among them, again showing the neighborhood's diversity, are a handful of newer homes with price tags running into the high $1 millions.

Properties hidden in Belmont Country Club’s northwest corner abut San Mateo, perched on hillsides along narrow roads that snake in and out of both cities. Here you’ll find large, multi-level houses that offer great value along with isolation and, increasingly as roads like Monte Cresta and Sequoia climb back uphill, views. These homes are poised at or near the top of the Belmont market, but are generally spacious, offering good price per square foot value. Occasionally, they’re new construction, custom homes loaded with of-the-moment amenities and perks.

Closer to the Alameda are homes built in the 1960s and 70s, ranging in size all the way from 1,100 to over 2,000 square feet, with anywhere from two to five bedrooms. Belmont Country Club’s diversity extends to its homes’ asking prices. Homes in Belmont Country Club sold for anywhere from $1.85 to $3.1 million, with the majority changing hands for between $1.8 and $1.9 million. For the period, homes sold at a median of $1.87 million.

With their heavily wooded, peaceful, somewhat rural neighborhoods, sections of Belmont Country Club and neighboring Antique Forest Homes embody a certain kind of Belmont lifestyle. Both neighborhoods change from block to block, however, with classic “suburban” streets segueing into blocks that appear to be the direct descendants of Woodside Glens or San Carlos’ Devonshire Canyon.

One thing all of Belmont Country Club’s diverse streets share: none of them can be considered “pedestrian-friendly,” unless your taste in walks tends toward hillside hikes.

Belmont is a wonderful, serene town with a rural feel and a destination for families. Most of the streets do not have sidewalks, and since much of the town is built amidst the hills, many homes offer extraordinary views of the peninsula. Belmont boasts four parks, and is mostly made up of homes and retail stores. The town’s heritage harks back to William Ralston, the founder of the Bank of California and builder of the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, who built his masterful summer residence, Ralston Hall, at the current site of Notre Dame University.

Ralston was offered to have the town of Modesto named after him, but at a Spanish ceremony he declined, and a Spanish lady dubbed him muy modesto, or very modest, and that is how the town got its name. To see a high resolution map of the image above, click here.