Green Acres walking tour

Green Acres is named for what used to be here. Until the late 1940s this corner of southwest Palo Alto was orchard country, mostly apricots. Today it is two quiet pockets of ranch houses on either side of Arastradero Road. What makes it unusual is the schools. An elementary, a middle and a high school sit within an easy walk of each other. The neighborhood's streets, parks and traffic patterns are shaped around them.

This loop follows Arastradero Road out to Gunn High School and comes back through Green Acres II and Juana Briones Park. It shares a few stops with our Barron Park walking tour, which covers the creek, the donkeys and the bike path to the north. Our Green Acres neighborhood guide covers boundaries and housing.

Before you go

The loop is about 2.5 miles and takes about 1.25 hours. Both figures are our estimates. The ground rises gently toward Gunn and is otherwise flat. The route starts on El Camino Real near the Arastradero Road intersection. VTA buses run on El Camino Real. The nearest Caltrain stations, California Avenue and San Antonio, are each a bike ride away.

• Timing: Walk on a weekend, a school holiday or a weekday after about 9 a.m. Arastradero is very busy at school drop-off and pickup.
• Shade: Arastradero Road has little of it. Bring water and a hat in summer and early fall.
• By bike: The loop also works as a short ride. Arastradero has bike lanes, though they are crowded with students at school times.

Breakfast and coffee

Green Acres has no shops of its own, so fuel up at the start. Hobee's, at 4224 El Camino Real, has served breakfast and lunch in the Bay Area since 1974. In late October 2026 its site listed hours of 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday to Friday and 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on weekends. It is closed Mondays. The coffeecake is the house signature. Check the restaurant's page before you go. Our breakfast guide covers other options.

The route, stop by stop

1. El Camino Real at Arastradero Road. Charleston Road becomes Arastradero Road here and heads west toward the foothills. The road's name comes from the Spanish arrastradero, usually explained as a place where logs were dragged. Head west.
2. The Palo Alto Orchards streets. Off Arastradero near El Camino is the small Palo Alto Orchards tract, where owners were moving in by 1950. Palo Alto Online has reported that developers James McKellar and Matthew Kelly named its streets for themselves and their wives, Suzanne and Lorabelle. Look for the names on the signs.
3. Green Acres I. Continue west and turn into the small pocket between Arastradero Road and Glenbrook Drive, bounded by Los Palos and Pomona avenues. Its houses are single-story ranches with attached garages and deep backyards. Residents point to underground utilities as a plus, since overhead lines are still common in Barron Park next door.
4. Ellen Fletcher Middle School, 655 Arastradero Road. The first school here was Terman Junior High, which closed in 1978 as enrollment fell. The district reopened the site as Terman Middle School in 2001 to 2002. In March 2018 the school board voted to rename it for Ellen Fletcher, the cycling advocate who served on the City Council from 1977 to 1989. Bowman School's campus sits beside it on Terman Drive. Our Ellen Fletcher biography tells her story.
5. Terman Park. Behind the school stretch 7.7 acres of fields and courts. The city lists them as reserved for the school during school hours, so this is a weekend and evening park for everyone else. The park kept its name when the school changed. We found no city record of which Terman it honors.
6. Henry M. Gunn High School, 780 Arastradero Road. Keep walking west to the campus, crossing Arastradero at a signal if you need to. The district bought the land from Stanford in 1963 for $358,641 and Gunn opened in August 1964 with about 600 sophomores and juniors. It is named for Henry M. Gunn, superintendent from 1950 to 1961, who steered the district through the postwar boom. Barron Creek, which starts in the Los Altos Hills, passes under the campus in a pipe. Stay on the public sidewalk during school hours.
7. Fire Station 5, Arastradero Road. Turn back east. At the city fire station beside Juana Briones Park, artist Bodeck Luna painted the roll-up door with rolling hills and redwoods, the station bell, the Gunn Titans, the Fletcher Tigers and a computer cursor. When the engine is out on a call, the door is up and the mural disappears.
8. Green Acres II. Head north into the larger pocket between Arastradero Road and Maybell Avenue, bounded by Coulombe Drive and Georgia Avenue. Lots are generous by Palo Alto standards and front lawns run to the curb. Some rebuilds have added second stories, but most houses are still one story.
9. Juana Briones Park, 609 Maybell Avenue. The 4.1-acre park was itself an apricot orchard. Walk its edges to find the small groves of apricot trees volunteers have planted. Then read the sign about Juana Briones de Miranda, the Californio landowner who could neither read nor write and still won her land case in American courts. The playground has a long-running train theme. Juana Briones Elementary is close by at 4100 Orme Street. See our Briones Park guide.
10. Maybell Avenue back to El Camino Real. Walk east on Maybell. This street and Arastradero are the main routes to the three schools, which is why traffic dominated the 2013 debate over Measure D, a rezoning for senior apartments and houses on a former orchard site along Maybell that voters rejected. At El Camino Real turn south to return to the start.

From apricots to ranch houses

Like most of south Palo Alto, this land was once part of Rancho Rincón de San Francisquito, bought by the Robles brothers in 1847 (some sources say 1849). By the early 1900s it was planted in fruit trees. Apricots were one of the signature crops of the Santa Clara Valley. After World War II the orchards were sold and subdivided. Building ran into the 1960s, with ranch and bungalow-style homes replacing the last trees. Exact tract dates and builders for Green Acres are not well documented in published sources, so treat any single year you see with care. Our page on orchards and agriculture covers the valley's farm years.

Juana Briones, whose name is on the park and the elementary school, owned a large rancho in the hills nearby in the 19th century. Her house site on Old Adobe Road is California Historical Landmark No. 524, with a state plaque placed in 2007. The house itself was taken down in 2011. Our Juana Briones page covers her life and the long preservation fight.

Accessibility notes

• The route is mostly flat, with a gentle rise toward Gunn.
• Arastradero Road has sidewalks and signals at the main school crossings. Use them. Traffic is heavy at school times.
• Interior streets in both pockets are quiet. Where sidewalks are interrupted, walk facing traffic.
• The city lists no restrooms at Terman Park or Briones Park. Plan on the restaurant at the start.
• For a shorter walk of about 1.25 miles, skip Gunn and the fire station and go from Fletcher straight across Arastradero to Briones Park.

Sidewalk etiquette

Going farther

Keep going west on Arastradero past Gunn and you reach Pearson-Arastradero Preserve, with grassland trails and bluebirds in spring. That is a longer walk best done by bike or car.

Sources

Neighborhood boundaries and street details follow Palo Alto Online's neighborhood profile. School histories come from the district, Gunn and Fletcher pages we have published. The mural details follow the city's public art program. Distances and times are our estimates.

Frequently asked questions