Ritz you can afford
Is an affordable country-club lifestyle a contradiction in terms? Perhaps not in the Camarillo community of Spanish Hills Estates, where your housing dollar stretches farther than in Los Angeles, and the Spanish Hills Country Club provides the glamour.
Beginnings
This is a planned community of 144 home sites, each on lots of about an acre, and 91 town homes known as the golf villas. It was built in the 1990s around the development of the Spanish Hills Country Club.
The club remains at the heart of the community today, with about 90% to 95% of homeowners joining. The rest of the 840 members come from other parts of Camarillo or from as far away as Agoura and Malibu.
What it’s about
People who live in the Los Angeles basin have historically pushed outward with the hope of buying more house for their money. This community is a result of that drive.
But unlike some of the other places where Angelenos migrate for better schools, lower crime rates and the omnipresent desire for bigger and nicer homes, this one doesn’t cook in the summer. The climate here is decidedly Mediterranean -- hot but without the broil of Thousand Oaks or Palmdale-Lancaster. It also is spared the fog and ocean dampness of its neighbors Oxnard and Ventura farther west.
“The area has a real resort feel to it,” said Carole Hernandez, a broker associate with Prudential California Realty in Camarillo, which is in Ventura County.
Drawing card
There are two factors that make this community worth a look if you are considering places near the L.A. perimeter: the home prices and the country club. These homes are big and a respectable distance from neighbors, conveying the message: Rich people live here.
And there is a big bang for the dollar compared with prices in Greater Los Angeles.
The Spanish Hills Country Club provides the lifestyle that completes the picture. There’s an 18-hole, par-71 championship golf course designed by Robert E. Cupp; five tennis courts, including a center court with viewing decks for 500 spectators; a swimming pool and toddler wading pool; a fitness center and spa; a restaurant with terrace overlooking the golf course; and summer camp programs for children.
Packages include the social membership, which restricts use of the club to the dining facilities and social events and costs $63 a month after a $1,000 initiation fee, and the athletic membership, which allows unlimited access to the tennis courts, fitness center, pools, spa and dining facilities, 12 rounds of golf annually and all social events, and carries a one-time initiation fee of $4,000 and $225 monthly dues. Full golf membership carries an initiation fee of $20,000 and monthly dues of $595.
Good news, bad news
Most Angelenos know Camarillo for its premium factory outlets. The good news is that you can roll out of your Spanish Hills Estates home and pretty much be there -- same exit, just across the freeway.
Although Spanish Hills was originally intended to be a gated community, issues involving the county quashed that plan. And since there are no gates, drivers use the roads traversing the community as through streets. This raises the traffic volume and noise level and annoys some residents.
On the market
There are about five houses on the market right now, said agent Hernandez.
They include a 4,900-square-foot house with five bedrooms and 4 1/2 bathrooms that is listed at $1,999,999. It was built in 1999. There is also a similar-size home built in 2002 listed for $2,250,000.
There are two villas on the market right now, both in the newer section of the community. One is a two-story, four-bedroom, three-bathroom home of 1,953 square feet that was built in 1997, listed at $849,000. It is the largest of the villas and has views of the Las Posas Valley and the mountains.
Report card
Through eighth grade, students attend Mesa Elementary School in the Mesa Union Elementary School District, which scored 835 out of a possible 1,000 on the 2006 Academic Performance Index Base Report. Students attending Rio Mesa High School, in the Oxnard Union High School District, scored 697.
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Sources: api.cde.ca.gov; www.thebrokerduo.com; www.spanishhillsestates.com; www.spanishhillscc.com.