Trapani Realty
Neighborhoods
Kirsten and Rocco sell homes across seven South Bay communities. Here is a little about each one.
Incorporated 1887
Los Gatos
Los Gatos sits where the valley meets the Santa Cruz Mountains, and its name, Spanish for “the cats,” comes from the cougars and bobcats of these foothills. Downtown along Santa Cruz Avenue and Main Street keeps its restored Victorian storefronts, and the Los Gatos Creek Trail runs past the old stone Forbes Mill on its way to Vasona Park. Rocco has lived here his entire life, and Kirsten’s sales include a record-setting $12.5 million estate on Forrester Road.
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The Village
Saratoga
Saratoga incorporated in 1956 under the slogan “Keep it rural,” and many of its streets still have no sidewalks or streetlights. The Village along Big Basin Way anchors a town known for Villa Montalvo, the Mountain Winery and Hakone Gardens, one of the oldest Japanese-style residential gardens in the Western Hemisphere. Kirsten’s Saratoga listing on Edinburgh Drive drew ten offers in its first week.
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The serene mountain
Monte Sereno
Monte Sereno takes its name, Spanish for “serene mountain,” from El Sereno, the peak whose slopes it climbs. It incorporated in 1957 to protect its quiet and remains entirely residential, with no commercial zoning at all. John Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath at his wooded home here, and today it is where Kirsten and Rocco carry the family name forward.
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Where Trapani Realty began
Willow Glen
Willow Glen was its own city from 1927 until 1936, when residents voted to join San Jose, and Lincoln Avenue still feels like a small-town main street. Its homes range from Victorians and Craftsmans to Spanish-style houses and Eichlers, and every holiday season more than 200 streets fill with the lit front-yard trees that started here in 1950. In the 1940s, Joseph Trapani opened Trapani Realty on Lincoln Avenue.
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The Orchard City
Campbell
Campbell grew from Benjamin and Mary Campbell’s 1850s settlement into “The Orchard City,” named for the fruit orchards that once covered the valley floor, and it incorporated in 1952. Every Sunday, downtown Campbell Avenue closes for the farmers market, steps from the 1928 water tower and the Ainsley House, a 1925 English Tudor home. The Los Gatos Creek Trail runs right through town.
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Since 1777
San Jose
San Jose was founded in 1777 as the Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe, California’s first civilian settlement, and is now the largest city in Northern California. Beyond downtown it is a city of distinct neighborhoods, from the Rose Garden, with a 5½-acre municipal garden of more than 4,000 rose bushes, to Almaden Valley along the Guadalupe River. The original Trapani Realty sign read “1191 Lincoln Ave., San Jose.”
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South San Jose
Cambrian
Cambrian sits in South San Jose, bordered by Willow Glen, Campbell, Los Gatos and Almaden. Its name goes back to the 1870s, when David Lewis, a Welsh-born ranch hand, named the local school after Cambria, the Latin name for Wales. Its best-known landmark is Cambrian Park Plaza, built in 1953 at Camden and Union Avenues, with its colorful carousel sign.
