Huntington Beach · Orange County
A local's guide to the neighborhoods around Central Park
One of us has lived here for 25 years. The other helps people move here for a living. This is the guide we wish every Huntington Beach buyer had.
Last updated:
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About three to four miles inland from the sand, wrapped around the north edge of Huntington Central Park, 343 acres of lakes, trails, library and nature center. You get Huntington Beach without paying the coastal premium or living in the crowd.
Single-family tracts built 1967 to 1969. One and two stories, roughly 1,450 to 2,500 square feet on lots of about 5,500 to 7,500 square feet. Pools are common. HOAs are not: almost nothing here has one.
Golden View Elementary with its own 2.5-acre working farm, Mesa View Middle, and Ocean View High. All three are inside or on the edge of the neighborhood. Kids here can walk to school from kindergarten through senior year.
Quiet and suburban, with the park doing the work a downtown does somewhere else. Barbara puts it this way: it suits people who want everything Huntington Beach has without being in the thick of it.
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People say "Huntington Beach" like it is one place. It is really six or seven, and the differences matter more than the price differences do.
The waterfront tier, developed starting in 1965 across five man-made islands, with private docks, big boats, and an annual boat parade that half the city turns out for. Condos are the entry point. If your picture of coastal California involves a dock behind the house, this is the address. It is also the most expensive way to live in Huntington Beach.
Walk to the pier, walk to dinner, walk home. A mix of early-1900s cottages and new beach houses on small lots. You trade square footage and quiet for the ability to leave the car parked all weekend. Summer is loud. Some people love that.
The upscale inland-of-PCH enclave built around the golf course now called The Huntington Club. Newer construction than most of the city, larger homes, more polish. Club membership does not come with the house.
Near the Newport border, with everything from bungalows to contemporary two-stories, and Santa Ana River Trail access. Parts of it sit low, so flood zone questions are worth asking early.
Midcentury ranch homes, Meadowlark Golf Club, Marina High, and Brightwater on the bluff above the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve, roughly 1,300 acres of restored wetlands. The birding out there is genuinely good.
You are here
The middle of the city, wrapped around Central Park. Late-sixties single-family tracts, no HOA, three schools within walking distance, and 343 acres of park functioning as everyone's backyard.
Here is the honest thesis of this page: if the Harbour is out of reach and Main Street is not your speed, the middle of the city is where Huntington Beach actually lives. That is the part nobody writes a guide about, so we wrote one.
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Edwards Street on the west, Goldenwest Street on the east, Warner Avenue along the north, and the northern edge of Huntington Central Park along the south. Slater Avenue runs through the middle. ZIP code 92647.
Barbara has lived here 25 years and calls it Central HB. That is the name to use.
On the MLS you will see the tract names: Franciscan Fountains and Belmeadow north of Slater, and Franciscan Fountains again on the south side. Aggregator websites sometimes tag these addresses with names that belong to other parts of town. Ignore them. If you are searching listings, search the tract names and the Central Park cross streets.
One neighborhood note worth stating plainly: Oak View sits just east across Gothard Street. It is a separate neighborhood with its own school attendance area, and children in these tracts do not attend Oak View schools. It comes up often enough in buyer questions that we would rather answer it than let people guess.
Long before the tracts, the stretch along Warner Avenue was known as Wintersburg. Old-timers still call it that.
That name carries real history. Just east of here, where Warner meets Nichols Lane, sits Historic Wintersburg, one of the most significant Japanese American heritage sites in Southern California. In 1908 two Japanese immigrants, Charles Mitsuji Furuta and Reverend Hisakichi Terasawa, bought land here, months before California's Alien Land Law would have made it impossible. The Furuta family farmed goldfish and later flowers on that ground. In 1942, under Executive Order 9066, they were removed and confined at Poston, Arizona for three years, then came back in 1945 and rebuilt the farm. The Wintersburg Japanese Mission had been founded on the site in 1904. The National Trust for Historic Preservation named the site one of America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places in 2014 and a National Treasure in 2015. A 2022 fire destroyed the 1910 mission building and manse. Four structures remain, including the 1912 Furuta house and barn and the 1934 mission church, and the Historic Wintersburg Conservancy, formed in 2023, is working to acquire and restore them.
We mention it because you will drive past it every week, and because the name of your neighborhood came from somewhere.
The rest of the story is faster. Huntington Beach was named in 1904 for Henry E. Huntington, who ran his Pacific Electric line to the coast. Oil arrived in 1920 and paid the bills for decades. Wintersburg was annexed into the city in 1957, in a stretch when Huntington Beach annexed 20 square miles in four years and grew from about 11,000 people in the 1950s to roughly 148,000 by the early 1970s, then the fastest-growing city in the country.
These streets went up in that boom, 1967 to 1969. Then something lucky happened. In 1969 a citizens' committee called People for Parks got a $6 million park bond on the ballot, and voters passed it with more than 70 percent support to build a 400-acre Central City Park. Huntington Central Park was dedicated on June 15, 1974. So the houses came first by a few years, and the park grew up next to them.
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Huntington Central Park is 343 acres, the largest park in a city park system of 79 parks and 767 acres. Goldenwest Street splits it into an east side and a west side. From most of this neighborhood you can walk into it.
Here is what is actually in there.
At 7111 Talbert Avenue, designed by Richard and Dion Neutra and opened April 5, 1975, with a 43,000-square-foot expansion in 1994. It is a genuine piece of modernist architecture with water running through the courtyards, and it is your local branch. There is a children's library, a theater, and a gallery inside.
An 18-acre fenced native habitat preserve on the west side at 17851 Goldenwest, with oak woodland, coastal sage scrub, a redwood grove and Blackbird Pond. Free to walk, volunteer-run, open a few mornings a week.
Talbert Lake on the east side, Lake Huntington on the west.
18381 Goldenwest, boarding more than 400 horses, with lessons, trail rides, and a nonprofit therapeutic riding program on site. Yes, there are horses in the middle of your city.
The Sports Complex at 18000 Goldenwest, an 18-hole disc golf course on the west side, and Best Friend Dog Park at Edwards and Inlet.
Park Bench Cafe at 17732 Goldenwest, famous for being dog friendly, and Kathy May's Lakeview Cafe at 6622 Lakeview Drive, on the water since 1999.
A native and drought-tolerant demonstration garden behind the library, restored and maintained by HB Tree Society volunteers since 2014. Most people who live here have never found it.
Both on the east side, both rentable, both used more than you would expect.
The OC Cherry Blossom Festival in spring, the Pacific Islander Festival, and HB Civil War Days all happen in this park. When they do, you walk.
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Coffee at home, or the ten-minute walk into the park for breakfast at Park Bench Cafe, in through the entrance by Armstrong Garden Centers. Dogs everywhere, families at half the tables, water birds on Talbert Lake behind you.
Then the library, because it is a hundred yards away and it is a Neutra building, which is not a sentence most people get to say about their local branch.
The afternoon is whatever the season is doing. Beach if it is warm: straight down Goldenwest, and you are parking near the sand in a few miles. The pier and Main Street if you have visitors, because everyone wants to see the pier. Otherwise, back home to the backyard, which in this neighborhood is usually the point.
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This is the strongest single argument for this neighborhood, and it is not close.
17251 Golden View Lane, Ocean View School District, TK through 5
Golden View is a California Green School built around environmental science, and it has a 2.5-acre working farm, known around the neighborhood as S.E.L.F.: a red barn, animal enclosures, raised beds growing strawberries, carrots, lettuce, kale and spinach, a greenhouse, outdoor classrooms. Students do real chores, graded by age. Other schools in the district bus in for farm field trips. The school has been recognized as a 2020 California Green Ribbon School, won a 2024 CSBA Golden Bell Award for environmental innovation, and was named an OC Impact School. Its annual Environmental Showcase is the event to see if you are deciding between neighborhoods.
17601 Avilla Lane, 6 through 8
GATE, a strong performing arts program, archery as an athletics elective, and the WEB program that pairs eighth graders with incoming sixth graders. It rates well and consistently.
17071 Gothard Street
Right at the neighborhood's northeast shoulder.
Golden View, Mesa View, and Ocean View are all within a mile of most of these streets. As Barbara puts it: your kids can walk K-12. In a Southern California suburb, that is close to unheard of.
Nearby: Hope View Elementary serves part of the wider area and runs a well-liked service-dogs-in-training program. Private options in and around 92647 include St. Bonaventure, Hebrew Academy, Liberty Christian, Fusion Academy and several Montessori programs.
School attendance areas change. Confirm current boundaries with Ocean View School District and Huntington Beach Union High School District before you buy on a school.
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Nearly everything here was built between 1967 and 1969, and the tracts are consistent in a way newer infill neighborhoods are not.
One and two stories, roughly 1,450 square feet at the small end to about 2,500 at the large end.
Three to five bedrooms, two to three baths.
Lots of roughly 5,500 to 7,500 square feet, which is generous by current standards and is why so many yards here have pools and mature trees.
Pools are common. So are converted garages, added bathrooms, and the general evidence of 55 years of families.
Downstairs bedrooms show up in several floorplans, which makes these houses unusually workable for multigenerational living.
No HOA. On essentially every home we have looked at in these tracts, there are no dues and no association rules. That is a durable trait of the neighborhood, not a listing quirk.
What that means practically: these are 55-plus-year-old houses. Most have been through at least one remodel cycle, and some have been through three. The ones that have not will need systems work, and the difference between those two houses is the whole conversation when you are writing an offer. That is the part we are useful for.
We keep prices and rates off this page on purpose, because they change and this guide should not. If you want current numbers for these streets, ask us and we will pull them.
Ask us what these homes are doing right now08
Straight down Goldenwest to Pacific Coast Highway, a few miles. The pier and Main Street are about the same distance southwest.
Warner and Goldenwest holds Stater Bros., Sprouts, Home Depot and a CVS, plus the Warner West center that has been there since 1969. There is an ARCO at Slater and Goldenwest. That is most of a normal week inside a mile.
Bella Terra on Edinger to the north, Five Points Plaza to the southeast. Note for anyone with an old map in their head: Westminster Mall is gone, demolished and being redeveloped as housing and mixed use.
I-405 has interchanges at both Goldenwest and Warner, so you pick your on-ramp by which direction is behaving that morning. Beach Boulevard runs south to Pacific Coast Highway.
John Wayne is the closest, Long Beach is roughly comparable, and LAX is the long one you plan around.
Huntington Beach Hospital is a few minutes east on Beach Boulevard with a 24-hour emergency room, and MemorialCare Orange Coast Medical Center is in Fountain Valley.
Surf City Nights runs downtown on Main Street on Tuesday evenings.
Golden View Park, at 17201 Cobra Lane, is the small neighborhood park by the school. It is not Central Park, and that is the point: it is the one you walk to with a scooter.
See our neighborhood directory09
The library is a Richard and Dion Neutra building. Most people who use it every week do not know that.
The Secret Garden is behind the library. Go find it.
There are more than 400 horses boarded in the middle of your city.
The wind carries the middle school bells across the neighborhood, and carries the ocean into south- and west-facing backyards after about five o'clock.
If you want the park at its best, go on a weekday morning.
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Every guide like this is a sales pitch unless it tells you who should not buy here. So:
Goldenwest is a major arterial, Warner is a primary arterial, Slater is a secondary arterial. Inside the tracts it is quiet and the streets curve. But the neighborhood is wrapped in real traffic, and if you are used to a cul-de-sac suburb with one way in, this will feel busier.
It is three to four miles from the sand. You will drive or bike to it, and in July you will think about the drive. The upside is that the summer crowd stays coastal and your street does not become a parking lot.
Late-sixties construction means original systems in some homes: electrical panels, galvanized supply lines, single-pane windows, roofs at the end of a cycle. None of that is a dealbreaker, all of it is a negotiation.
No dues and nobody telling you what color to paint the trim, and also nobody telling your neighbor. If uniformity matters to you, look at a newer planned community.
Marine layer mornings in late spring and early summer are a regional pattern, not a bad year.
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We have been here 25 years and we still learn something new about this neighborhood every year.
So: what did we miss? The restaurant we should have named. The thing about the park that only shows up in April. The correction we need to make. Send it to us and we will read every one. Good ones go on the page, and if you want credit we will name you.
This page was last updated on . We review every suggestion and update it.
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Barbara has lived in Central Huntington Beach for 25 years. She raised a family here, walked kids to Golden View, and has opinions about which park entrance is the right one.
David works Huntington Beach and the surrounding coastal cities full time, and spends most of his week on exactly the question this page is about: which of these neighborhoods is right for the person asking.
Between us: one lived-in answer and one professional one. If you are thinking about a move here, we would rather talk to you early, when it is still a question, than late, when it is a bidding war.
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For most people who are already looking at coastal Orange County, yes, with the honest caveat that "Huntington Beach" means several very different neighborhoods at very different price points. Downtown is walkable and busy, the Harbour is waterfront and expensive, and the middle of the city is quiet, family-oriented and closer to what people picture when they picture a suburb. The city has 79 parks, a 343-acre central park, and its own school districts, and the beach is never more than a few miles away.
This is the question this whole page answers: the neighborhoods around Central Park, between Edwards and Goldenwest, north of the park and south of Warner. Late-1960s single-family homes, no HOA, three schools within walking distance, and 343 acres of park at the end of the street.
Families tend to weigh schools, yard size and walkability. On all three, the tracts around Central Park do unusually well: lots of roughly 5,500 to 7,500 square feet, and an elementary, middle and high school all close enough to walk to.
It depends entirely on the neighborhood. Newer planned communities and most condo and townhome developments do. The late-1960s single-family tracts in Central Huntington Beach almost universally do not, which is one of the quieter financial advantages of buying here.
Attendance areas matter more than city reputation, and they change, so verify before you buy. In this part of the city the path runs Golden View Elementary to Mesa View Middle to Ocean View High. Golden View is a California Green School with a 2.5-acre working farm and a 2020 Green Ribbon award and a 2024 Golden Bell award; Mesa View rates consistently well.
Practically: you walk to a library, two cafes, two lakes, a nature center, a dog park, disc golf and an equestrian center. You also get wildlife, including the occasional coyote, and event weekends when the park fills up and you park at home and walk. Most people here consider that a good trade.
Inside the tracts, quiet. Around them, real arterials: Goldenwest, Warner and Slater all carry serious traffic at rush hour. I-405 is reachable at both Goldenwest and Warner. Summer beach traffic is concentrated downtown and along the coast, several miles from here.
Mild all year, with a marine layer pattern in late spring and early summer that locals call June gloom. Ocean breezes reach this far inland, which is why the south- and west-facing backyards here can be cool for an evening outside.
