Included among Bowie Estate’s early 20th-century bungalows, 1940s ranchers and 1960s apartment buildings is an oddity at the neighborhood’s eastern edge. A one-block stretch of North Idaho Street is lined with grand, Spanish-style 1920s homes, completely in contrast with the neighborhood’s otherwise humble real estate inventory.

Outside of North Idaho Street, Bowie Estate homes for sale typically fall squarely into the “entry-level” market segment. Small two- and three-bedroom bungalows and ranchers dating from the 1920s and 1940s, some worse for the wear, can sell for less than $1.2 million, with properties listing in the $800 and $900,000 range. The neighborhood includes a smattering of Victorian homes and a few new townhouse complexes where homes begin at $600,000. The recent market run-up has introduced $1.5 million single-family homes to Bowie Estate, with the secondary benefit being that home sellers are adding high-end amenities to their once-modest properties before listing.

Bowie Estate has plenty to offer bargain-seeking homebuyers. It’s close to downtown and commute corridors and has perhaps the best collection of high-potential, moderate-asking price vintage homes in San Mateo. Buyers willing to do their homework may find what they’re looking for in Bowie Estate.

To view a detailed google map of the Bowie Estate neighborhood, click here. The MLS area is 416.

History

The first thing you need to know about Bowie Estate is that it is not built on the former site of the Bowie Estate. Agnes and Henry Bowie’s grand estate, Severn Lodge, was in Hillsborough. The Bowies did own some of the land that now bears their name. In the early 1900s, they used their chunk of the former Howard Estate for cattle grazing.

Called “Peninsula Manor,” the tiny, century-old development dates to the ill-fated Pacific Studios experiment, in which a group of local businessmen and politicians attempted to create a “Hollywood North” in San Mateo, building a state-of-the-art studio on Peninsula Avenue. Completed in 1920, Pacific Studios lasted less than a decade, leaving Peninsula Manor homeowners (and their descendents) with legendary tales of movie stars renting homes on North Idaho Street while filming. Peninsula Manor homes for sale can be had for between $700,000 and $900,000 – at the high end of Bowie Estate real estate, but a bargain when you consider that the two-story, Mission-style homes each have upwards of 3,000 square feet of space.