For Largest Home Sizes, Head for the Hills

Where do you move if you want a house with some elbow room? Head for the hills. The largest homes in the Golden State are in Hidden Hills, Rancho Santa Fe, Los Altos Hills, Beverly Hills and Rolling Hills, according to a real estate information service.

In a database run through almost all of California’s 6 million houses, residences in West San Fernando Valley community of Hidden Hills averaged the largest in size at 4,193 square feet, closely followed by Rancho Santa Fe in San Diego County at 4,126 square feet, and Los Altos Hills in Santa Clara County at 3,534 square feet, according to Dataquick Information Systems in La Jolla.

The average size of all California houses is 1,551 square feet.

At the other end of the scale are a number of desert and second-home communities. Houses in Lenwood, a small community near Barstow, average 752 square feet in size.

In Ripley, a community near the Colorado River, the average is 805 square feet. In several of the resort communities near Big Bear in the San Bernardino Mountains, the average size is in the 800- to 900-square-foot range.

Dataquick maintains an electronic file on every property in the state. Besides continually updated sales, loan and ownership records, the database has property characteristic information such as lot size, house size, number of bedrooms and bathrooms etc.

Access to the information is provided to the banking and real estate industry, as well as to consumers.

Of the 25 communities with the largest homes, 19 were located in Southern California and 12 of those in Los Angeles County. Homes in these areas generally sell for $700,000 to $800,000, and up.

Community Average House Size

1-Hidden Hills, 4,193 sq.ft. 2-Rancho Santa Fe, 4,126 sq.ft. 3-Los Altos Hills, 3,534 sq.ft. 4-Beverly Hills, 3,501 sq.ft. 5-Rolling Hills, 3,461 sq.ft. 6-Hillsborough, 3,315 sq.ft. 7-Indian Wells, 3,141 sq.ft. 8-Agoura Hills, 3,065 sq.ft. 9-Bradbury, 3,047 sq.ft. 10-Villa Park, 2,999 sq.ft. 11-Dove Canyon, 2,993 sq.ft. 12-Atherton, 2,969 sq.ft. 13-Rolling Hills Est., 2,961 sq.ft. 14-Coto De Caza, 2,921 sq.ft. 15-Diablo, 2,920 sq.ft. 16-Rancho Mirage, 2,845 sq.ft. 17-Westlake Village, 2,808 sq.ft. 18-Palos Verdes Est., 2,807 sq.ft. 19-La Habra Heights, 2,803 sq.ft. 20-San Marino, 2,755 sq.ft. 21-Alamo, 2,607 sq.ft. 22-Granite Bay, 2,607 sq.ft. 23-Toluca Lake, 2,582 sq.ft. 24-Woodside, 2,581 sq.ft. 25-Malibu, 2,572 sq.ft.