That senator was James Duval Phelan, and his cultural center was Villa Montalvo, which two years ago shortened its name to Montalvo. Phelan, a three-time San Francisco mayor who later became California's first popularly elected U.S. senator, had the mansion-sized villa built in 1912. For the next 18 years, he hosted many leading writers, artists and politicians of the time.

He named his property after 16th-century Spanish writer Garcia Ordonez de Montalvo, who in turn inspired the name of California. In one of his fables, de Montalvo wrote of a treasure-filled island inhabited by Amazons ruled by a Queen Califia. The Amazons rode winged griffins, which explains the griffins Phelan incorporated into his architecture.

In the will read after his 1930 death, Phelan gave specific orders: "I would like the property at Saratoga, Calif., known as Villa Montalvo, to be maintained as a public park open under reasonable restrictions, the buildings and grounds immediately surrounding the same to be used as far as possible for the development of art, literature, music and architecture by promising students."

As Montalvo grew and expanded over the decades to realize these objectives, so too did the rest of the hillside over which it presided.

Retired dentist James "Jim" Marino, who has lived in his present home off Montalvo Road since 1966 with his wife, Claire, dons the hat of historian when it comes to his beloved neighborhood on the hill. "If you collect stamps or coins, like I used to, you learn to remember dates!" he says of his steel-trap memory.

According to Marino, a rancher by the name of David Arata Sr. once owned some 18 acres of hillside property, on which he grew 500 lime trees. Arata was well known for his "Montalvo limes" until the mid-1970s, when an exceptionally harsh winter froze most of his trees to death.

"So he bulldozed the orchard and put in a cabernet grape vineyard," Marino recalls. After the senior Arata's death, son David Arata Jr. sold some of the land for development but did keep some six to eight acres, which still grow grapes to this day. Part of the sold property is now the Montalvo Heights area.

Another street subdivided in recent decades and named for a local personage is nearby Audrey Smith Lane, a small court that wasn't named until the passing of its longtime resident Audrey Smith, a woman known for her involvement in Saratoga civic affairs.

As for Marino, his property is located in a depression on a private road accessed from a Montalvo Road cul-de-sac. "Part of the charm of living up here is that people don't know you're here," he says. Apparently even the music from the Montalvo Performing Arts Series can't find his home, since he says he rarely hears any of it. He attributes this to the tendency of sound to rise and to be carried by wind.

"It's really quiet up here. It's a nice place to live. When we bought the lot in 1962, our friends thought we were nuts, because there was no one up here then," he recalls.

"It's not really a young families kind of neighborhood now. We don't really get trick-or-treaters either. If people put out Christmas ornaments or lights, you're lucky," he says. What Marino does see frequently are groups of women who walk up Montalvo Road to the villa and back on most mornings.

Speaking of women, it was Marino's wife, Claire—a past president of the Montalvo Service Group—who discovered the ungraded lot on which they completed their dream home over the course of four years and raised their son and daughter.

"We kept looking for a better lot and never found it," says Marino, who enlisted the help of contractor and home designer Wendell Roscoe with the inquiry: "Ever built on a budget?" The Marinos' was the first home Roscoe built in Saratoga, although he went on to design others.

"If I had to buy my home today, I don't even think I could qualify for a loan!" Marino says, chuckling. According to real estate sales records, homes in the Montalvo neighborhood definitely cost a pretty penny these days—in fact, almost every home sale since 1999 has amounted to more than $1 million.

Buying into the area early on was also how Marykay and Bill Breitenbach came to be homeowners on Bonnie Brae Way, a street whose name—in traditional Scottish vernacular—fittingly means "pretty hillside." How they discovered their home is a longer story.

"We're from back East, and it struck us that a lot of the houses in the South Bay are so close together, with practically no yards. We'd been renting a place in Santa Clara and had come out here for a party on Madrone Hill Road when we saw a 'house for sale' sign pointing to Bonnie Brae," Breitenbach recalls.

Noticing that the home had plenty of space around it and a nicely sized yard—complete with a variety of fruit trees—the couple made an almost immediate offer. "The Realtor asked us, 'Don't you want to at least look at the inside?' " Breitenbach recalls, laughing.

"It was originally only about 1,100 square feet; all the old houses at the time were pretty small. We put on an addition with each child—and we've had four kids," she says.

Photograph by George Sakkestad Longtime Bonnie Brae Way resident Marykay Breitenbach enjoys the pool in her large backyard. Most of the homes in the Montalvo neighborhood sit on at least half-acre parcels.

She also has other fond memories of her neighborhood. One of them is the now-defunct egg farm run by the Oliveri family somewhere off Montalvo Road. The Oliveris used to go around the various neighborhood streets, hand-delivering fresh eggs, she recalls.

Another memory—this from an era before Breitenbach came to town—is the small railroad station she says used to stand near the corner of Bonnie Brae Way and Mendelsohn Lane. The Saratoga History Museum, at 20450 Saratoga­Los Gatos Road, should have some old photos of it, she adds.

Breitenbach's friends Julie and Robert Rinehart on Madrone Hill Road have one of the oldest homes in the neighborhood. It was built around 1914, Julie Rinehart says, for Sen. Phelan as a summer house for relatives or friends.

"We knew we were going to live here forever, and we were looking for an old house. We knew it needed work when we bought it. We made a lot of changes over the years, but 90 percent of it doesn't show," says Rinehart, who moved in in 1967 and raised two sons there.

"We don't plan to ever sell it. It's a beautiful lot with lots of oak trees. I like the privacy and the space. The proximity to Montalvo is nice, too; I've done a lot of volunteer work there and served on the board of trustees."

Although the owners before the Rineharts reduced the still-spacious lot by subdividing it into separate parcels, Rinehart says there's still enough space between her and her neighbors that they don't see or hear each other very often.

That doesn't mean she isn't neighborly, however. In fact, she says, it's only been in the past three to five years that enough new people have moved in to make her feel unfamiliar with her neighbors. She thinks this may be part of a trend.

"A couple of our friends have their homes on the market, because their homes are too big for them now that they've raised their families. There's also too much work taking care of the acreage," she explains.

Breitenbach has noticed something like this, too, estimating that the homeowners of 10 years or less are not as social as the old-timers, perhaps because they don't have as much free time for socializing with their neighbors. Or they may simply find it hard to shake the "new kid on the block" position.

"I think people are busy with their own lives and aren't as interested in neighborliness. But I hope the people who are moving in here will feel that way again, and will want to make new friendships," she says warmly, explaining how she hopes to make that happen by organizing events such as a Christmas social or spring block party.

"When my husband and I moved in as young people, we got to know all the older people in the neighborhood. Now we're the older people, but we don't know as many of the young ones," Breitenbach says.