But when he was looking for a place for his wife and three children, he chose the hinterland of Cupertino, a city where every family wants to live. "This is where three cities meet," he says. "We are almost like a forgotten part of Cupertino."

In the shadow of the intersection of Interstate 280 and Highway 85 sits Homestead Villa, an old-time neighborhood with newfangled problems. The freeway junction effectively cuts off this little pocket of homes and quiet streets from the rest of the city that shares their postal code and garbage collectors.

But transportation isn't the only thing that marks this neighborhood as a crossroads—Sunnyvale lies just across Homestead Road and on the other side of 85, and Los Altos is just down the road past the bridge over Stevens Creek. Residents shop in Los Altos because it's closer, and the neighborhood children attend schools with Sunnyvale addresses.

However, the mixture of original homeowners with a sprinkling of newcomers in this area—annexed into Cupertino in 1980—doesn't seem to mind. The residents have taken their outpost and turned it into a haven, transforming their large lots into orchards and vineyards. And instead of moving, many have remodeled their original homes to better fit the times and their personal styles.

But this change hasn't always gone smoothly—neighbors don't always see eye to eye on the issues that evolution has brought. Cupertino has stepped in by giving the area the city's new "semirural" designation, helping homeowners preserve the aspects of their neighborhood that, in a way, makes it separate from most of the city.

Wong moved his family to a home on Peninsular Avenue approximately 10 years ago for a number of reasons, including proximity to local schools. Homestead Villa is within walking distance of West Valley Elementary School, Cupertino Middle School and Homestead High School. Two of the three campuses are located in the Sunnyvale city limits. "The Cupertino school district [boundaries] developed differently from the city," he says.

The school district isn't the only thing that doesn't follow city boundaries. For a long time, the neighborhood wasn't even part of Cupertino—Homestead Villa was annexed on November 28, 1980. The gap between the initial development of the subdivision and annexation made for a number of disparities between the neighborhood and the rest of the city. John Shea bought his house on Wallace Drive in 1977 and was amused when he attended the Cupertino Community Congress this year. "One of the reasons people say they live in Cupertino is the sidewalks and streetlights. We don't have either of those here," he says. "This was the country."

Country into city

According to documents at the Cupertino Historical Society, the Homestead Villa tract was laid out in 1952, and homes were built not long after that. "These were starter homes," Shea says. "They were three-bedroom, one-bath houses, and some had fireplaces. They originally cost between $12,000 and $14,000." When they were built, the 1,000-square-foot houses were connected to septic tanks independent of the Cupertino sewer system; hence the large lots, approximately half an acre each.

Shea says about 30 homes had to be removed for the construction of Interstate 280, which now hugs the homes on Peninsular Avenue and Caroline Drive from just beyond a sound wall that was built after the freeway was built. Interstate 280 opened through the region on March 25, 1965, and the first leg of Highway 85 debuted to the east of the neighborhood on July 15, 1971.

But these weren't the first transportation byways to leave their mark—Peninsular Avenue is adjacent to the old right-of-way for streetcars in the Peninsular Interurban Electric Railway, which operated lines between Cupertino and Los Gatos, San Jose and a neighborhood of Palo Alto called Mayfield. The last Cupertino lines stopped running in 1934.

Cupertino exercised its annexation option in 1980, due to the Municipal Organization Act of 1977, which allowed cities to annex island areas. Shea does not recall much dissent at all for Cupertino annexation, but does remember those who didn't want to go under the umbrella of Los Altos because of higher property taxes. Others wanted Los Altos annexation because property values would have gone up.

Shea says Homestead Villa's septic tanks eventually gave way to connection to the Cupertino sewer system, though some households still do things the old way.

Later on, two additional developments were built around the core of original houses—a line of condominiums on Maxine Avenue, one of the neighborhood's main access roads, and about a dozen modern tract homes built in the late 1980s that abut the 280 sound wall on Peninsular. Dave Farrer has lived and worked in one of those homes since 1987 and says that he now notices the freeway more when it's quiet.

But the one-two punch of 280 and 85 has had some effect on the neighborhood's identification with the rest of Cupertino. "I don't feel a sense of isolation," Farrer says, "but I think we feel more akin to Los Altos." While Homestead Villa receives Cupertino services and a number of residents participate in community activities—for instance, Shea is a Leadership Cupertino graduate—many residents say their need for basic services takes them to the Trader Joe's or Albertsons in Los Altos.

Older but wiser

This detachment also makes for a neighborhood where attention is focused inward. Few vestiges of the original houses remain with all the remodels that have taken place over the years, which all show different interpretations of the original design. Most of the changes come from longtimers. "Not many of these places have gone up for sale," Shea says. "We're still an older neighborhood. Families with young kids are in the minority here. The median age is probably around 40." Or homes have stayed in the family; Mike Mansch, the owner of Alotta's Deli in Cupertino and Los Altos, lives on Peninsular and bought his home from his grandmother.

Shea and his wife, Mina, raised two sons at their home, which they expanded after living there 10 years. Mina also uses their re-landscaped backyard to grow herbs, pumpkins and three kinds of plums on one tree. A retired gardener who's lived in the neighborhood since its inception grafted the different kinds together and has helped other residents with their trees.

"A lot of people have fruit trees in their backyard, like apricots, pears and lemons. We all have an abundance at once," Mina says. "We have to put boxes on the street with all the excess." The large lots allow for this kind of growth, and several homeowners say the size was a big attraction to the neighborhood.

Margie Hattery has a number of fruit trees as well. The front yard of her house on Barranca Drive features twin almond trees, and kiwi grows all over a trellis she installed in her backyard. Hattery and her husband moved into the house about five years ago and have completed a number of projects since then, including re-landscaping in the back that will go all the way down to Stevens Creek, which marks their property line.

"I like that this area is kind of rural," she says. "I didn't realize how beautiful the backyard could be when we bought the house."

Hattery, who is an interior designer, has also pushed out the back wall of her house to put in a large master bathroom and plans even more improvements. She says she pinpointed this neighborhood because the older houses provided excellent canvases for her creative muse.

Remodeling woes solved

She won't face the same kind of financial strain that some of her neighbors did. Until June 17, Homestead Villa was under the same city regulation as the rest of Cupertino when it came to remodeling, which means the homeowners were fiscally responsible for adding sidewalks or streetlights in front of their houses if they were remodeling. The regulation and neighbors unhappy with one building project resulted in a streetlight that didn't work.

Xuan Nguyen moved his family into a home on Wallace Drive so his children could attend nearby schools. The original house with its three bedrooms and one bathroom wasn't big enough for his family, so he decided to tear it down and rebuild. Not only were some of his neighbors upset with his plans, but the city also required that he pay for a streetlight in front of his house. "I tried to ask for a waiver because there are no streetlights at all," he says. "After construction, I received a letter that said the streetlight would not be connected because of a request by the neighbors."

More than a year later, Nguyen is still trying to get the light working to justify his expense.

Another Homestead Villa resident who wanted to remodel and avoid the same situation started the process to attain Cupertino's new semirural designation. The designation was passed in October 2003 and exempts residents on an affected street from paying for curbs, gutters, sidewalks and streetlights when remodeling if those elements weren't previously present.

In order to get the designation, two-thirds of the homeowners along the street in question must sign a petition endorsing the change. At the June 17 city council meeting, the designation was awarded to the streets in Homestead Villa where the original homes were built—Barranca, Hibiscus, Wallace and Caroline drives, Hibiscus Court and one side of Peninsular Avenue. The side of Peninsular with the newer homes has sidewalks and streetlights, while the other side of the street does not.

Traffic and cars

Because Homestead Villa is out of the main traffic patterns, the only people driving through the neighborhood generally live there. Many residents list the quiet streets as one of the area's big attractions. But Hattery is worrying that the calm is dissipating—someone speeding down Barranca Drive struck and killed her cat in January. Since then, she has gone door to door on Barranca, asking her neighbors to slow down. She says more people fly down Barranca now that Maxine Drive, the other road that intersects with Homestead, has speed bumps.

"Every single person I talked to brought up speed bumps as something we can do here," Hattery says. She's also spoken with representatives from the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Department, who have set out large speed trailers. They will also speak at a meeting Hattery plans to hold at her home to resurrect Homestead Villa's forgotten Neighborhood Watch program. "I don't think it's necessary to have sidewalks, but we have seniors walking around here and kids playing," she says.

These concerns are not new to the neighborhood—in the late 1970s, Mina Shea petitioned to get stoplights installed at the intersection of Homestead and Maxine, which is along the path to nearby schools. She collected 700 signatures to make it happen, but the confusing city limits made things more complicated. "I had to go to Sunnyvale, Cupertino and the state," she says.

Increased communication with Neighborhood Watch might ease the other problems in the neighborhood. Other residents, who didn't want their names used, say they're bothered by excessive numbers of cars parked on the street, residents who don't properly maintain their property, and due to construction, the elimination of trees that buffer the sound from the freeway.

Sgt. Jeff Trybus, Cupertino's Neighborhood Watch officer, says that the city has 12 complaints on file for Barranca Drive alone—ranging from encroachment to parking enforcement to vehicle abandonment. The latter can be applied simply if "someone has a car that they can't drive and no place to store it, so they just leave it on the street," Trybus says.

Mark Wong remembers a time when antique car owners would congregate near his home on Peninsular Avenue and cause disturbances, as well as youngsters who would litter or set fires on nearby property owned by the Santa Clara Valley Water District. Both problems eased—the first after someone contacted the authorities and the second after the water district locked up its property.

But Wong also remembers a time when the whole neighborhood would celebrate Christmas with block parties, with families going from one house to another for each course of a meal, then singing carols and exchanging gifts. This tradition, to Wong's lament, has faded away as well.