Forging Friendships - Page 2

"We have someone in high school, middle school, elementary, and preschool," Sandra says of their children.

"I think being a member of the Eichler Swim Club is really important," Matt Robles says. "Just to bring your kids and socialize, and they have events. Basically anyone who has a kid in this neighborhood usually belongs to some type of swim club."

They meet many of their neighbors there, Matt Robles says. They also sometimes swim at another pool Eichler built, at the Greenmeadow subdivision.

Nearby Duveneck Elementary School is where most kids from the neighborhood start their education, "and that's the heart of our social activities," Matt Robles says, along with the other schools.

"They do this thing called 'Just Parties,'" he says. "This is a fundraiser where, as a parent, you can donate something. Like, I might donate a party hosted [at our house], and then everyone signs up and pays, I don't know, 50 bucks.

"Then that $50 goes to the school, and then we host the party and pay for all that. And then all the parents come here, and we get to meet them."

"I think people tend to know their neighbors," Matt Barthelemy says of the folks on Channing Avenue. "They tend to look out for each other. And if anything is amiss, you know, people converge in the street."

"It's very nice," Dan Huang says of social life on Edgewood Drive. "If you need something, or if you go on vacation, we will send out an email to let everybody know."

Along with the nearby Channing Park subdivision and the smaller Community Center tract, the Eichlers of Green Gables are the closest Eichler neighborhood to downtown Palo Alto, making it a very walkable community for both adults and children.

Jon De Feo cites as a major amenity "the proximity to everything for the kids. The grammar school right down the street, the middle school a quarter of a mile away, Palo Alto High School a mile away."

"Like our daughter now, she's a teenager," Roxanna says. "She rides her bike downtown. She meets her friends. It's convenient."

On top of biking west to downtown, you can bike east to San Francisco Bay, where there are natural areas and trails. "The Baylands is right there, so I can go for a run out there," Matt Robles says. "We can take the kids on a bike ride, even drive over to the duck pond, go golfing. It's awesome."

Roxanna De Feo goes walking with her dog, a husky, and sometimes with friends and their dogs, "Every day. Every day," she says. "It's nice because it's a beautiful walking neighborhood."

Yes, some neighborhood streets are heavily trafficked at times. Highway 101 is nearby ("the poor man's ocean," Matt Robles says of the traffic hum), but the canopy of old trees keeps the place looking neighborly.

"We drove when we were looking [to buy a home]," Jon De Feo says. "It was in the late spring, early summer. And so everything was in bloom. So even though it was a quote-unquote busier street, one of the things that made it so appealing was the old-growth trees down the street to make it look like a neighborhood, which was fantastic."