Fairmeadow

From the air Fairmeadow looks like a target. Its streets form concentric rings, one inside another, instead of the straight grid used almost everywhere else in Palo Alto. On the ground the effect is quieter. The curves slow cars, the rings carry almost no through traffic and every block bends out of sight after a few houses. Residents call the neighborhood the Circles.

Fairmeadow is one of Joseph Eichler's early Palo Alto tracts and sits beside Mitchell Park, the busiest park on the south side. This guide covers where it is, how the circular plan came about, the houses, schools, parks, getting around and what living here is like.

Where Fairmeadow is

Fairmeadow is in south Palo Alto, between East Meadow Drive and East Charleston Road. A Palo Alto Online profile describes it as bordered by those two streets, Alma Street on the west and the campuses of Jane Lathrop Stanford Middle School and Hoover Elementary on the east. Fairmeadow Elementary sits on East Meadow Drive at the neighborhood's edge.

The neighbors are close. Mitchell Park and the Mitchell Park Library lie just beyond the school campuses toward Middlefield Road. Palo Verde is to the northeast, across East Meadow Drive and Middlefield Road. Greenmeadow is south across East Charleston Road. Across Alma Street and the Caltrain tracks to the west is Charleston Meadows.

The circular plan

Joseph Eichler built Fairmeadow in the early 1950s, as the postwar boom turned south Palo Alto's orchards into tract housing. Sources differ on the exact years. The Eichler Network places it among his street plan experiments of 1950 to 1952. Our south Palo Alto guide gives a building span running into 1954.

The street plan is the tract's signature. The Eichler Network credits it to the San Francisco firm Anshen and Allen, which drew most Eichler site plans in those years. The National Register nomination for Greenmeadow also names Anshen and Allen as the designers of Fairmeadow's concentric ring layout. A. Quincy Jones and Frederick Emmons, who designed Greenmeadow a few years later, called it a concentric circle site plan and featured it in their 1957 book. The Eichler Network reports that Fortune magazine put an image of the interlocking circles on the cover of its February 1955 issue.

The circles had practical goals. By curving every street, the plan eliminated through traffic. Eichler's advertising also stressed that elementary and junior high schools were within walking distance, which is still true today. The circles share that idea with the smaller loops of the Greer Park tract in Midtown, another Anshen and Allen plan.

The houses

Fairmeadow's houses are early Eichlers. The Eichler Network describes most of them as having low-pitched gable roofs with a steeper second pitch over the exposed rafter ends, plus clerestory windows set into the gable ends. Some have flat roofs. Like all Eichlers they turn a mostly closed face to the street and open the back of the house to the garden with large panes of glass.

Because the lots follow the curves, many are wedge-shaped or slightly irregular. Houses on the inner rings face each other across short arcs of street. Original houses sit beside remodels and some newer two-story homes.

The Eichler Network reported in the 2010s that Fairmeadow had no overall homeowners association and no Eichler-specific preservation rules of its own, unlike Greenmeadow. The city's voluntary Eichler design guidelines, adopted in 2018, apply across Eichler neighborhoods. Ask the planning department whether a specific lot is covered by a Single Story Overlay before you buy or remodel. Our Palo Alto architecture guide explains the Eichler style and the architects behind it.

Mitchell Park and the library

Fairmeadow's biggest amenity is next door. J. Pearce Mitchell Park at 600 East Meadow Drive covers about 21 acres. It has a fenced dog park, sports fields, picnic areas and the Magical Bridge Playground, designed so children and adults of all abilities can play together. Our Mitchell Park guide covers all of it.

The Mitchell Park Library and Community Center at 3700 Middlefield Road share a building at the park's edge. The library has been open seven days a week, but check the Palo Alto City Library website for current hours. See our guide to Palo Alto libraries for the other branches. Families with young kids will find more ideas in our Palo Alto with kids guide.

Schools

Fairmeadow is unusual in having several public schools along its edges. Fairmeadow Elementary and JLS Middle School front East Meadow Drive and Hoover Elementary is on East Charleston Road. A 2014 Palo Alto Online profile listed Fairmeadow and Hoover elementary schools, JLS Middle School and Gunn High School for the neighborhood. Living next to a school does not guarantee a seat there. Assignments follow address boundaries that the district can change, so confirm with the PAUSD school finder. Our schools guide explains the district.

Shopping and food

Fairmeadow is residential, with no shops inside the circles. Palo Alto Online's profile listed Charleston Center as the nearby shopping option. Many residents also use the Midtown shopping area to the north on Middlefield Road and the large San Antonio shopping area just over the border in Mountain View. For restaurants, El Camino Real and California Avenue are a short drive or bike ride west.

Getting around

Fairmeadow sits right beside the Caltrain line but has no station of its own. The closest stops are California Avenue to the north and San Antonio in Mountain View to the south. Both are a bike ride away. East Meadow Drive and Charleston Road cross the tracks at street level beside Alma Street. The city has studied both crossings for years as part of its rail grade separation planning.

Biking is the easiest way to get around. The Bryant Street bike boulevard, the city's oldest, runs south as far as East Meadow Drive. Ross Road to the east is another bike boulevard with traffic circles. A bridge over US 101 near Adobe Creek, open since 2021, connects south Palo Alto to the bay shore. If you are visiting without a bike, you can look for bike rentals in the area. Our biking guide maps the routes.

What living here is like

The same layout that slows traffic also brings neighbors together. Palo Alto Online reported in 2014 that a Circles party funded by a city neighborhood grant drew about 300 residents, with pizza, bounce houses and a visit from a fire truck. The same profile described a volunteer neighborhood association, an emergency preparedness network built on block captains and residents who keep in touch through email lists and online neighborhood groups.

Living here means a park, a library and several schools within a few minutes on foot, in a neighborhood with almost no through traffic. The trade-offs are school-hour congestion on the edges, a long walk to a train station and the upkeep that comes with original 1950s houses.

There are no hotels in Fairmeadow. Visiting relatives often stay along El Camino Real or in Mountain View. For a longer family visit, you can browse house rentals in Palo Alto. To compare Fairmeadow with other Eichler tracts, return to the neighborhoods overview.

Frequently asked questions