Scotts Valley

Once a sleepy, retirement town, Scotts Valley has enjoyed an awakening in the past few years with a migration of high tech. Scotts Valley is a great place to live for those seeking a quieter lifestyle than found in the Silicon Valley and the popular beach towns of Monterey Bay, while being within a short driving distance of them.

Location & Flavor

Scotts Valley is surrounded by redwoods and is poised just six miles from Santa Cruz Beach. Many high tech professionals have relocated to Scotts Valley, and the approximate population of 11,000 includes a large percentage of young families. Nestled in an upland slope of the Santa Cruz Mountains,

In its early years, the area was a stagecoach stop. In later years, the city poised itself for the tourism industry by creating a series of theme parks. As tourism here slowed down, the theme parks closed one by one, and in 1978, the last to remain, Santa's Village, closed. For the next 20 plus years, Scotts Valley was known as a retirement town until in more recent years, young urban professionals discovered the advantages of living here while working in nearby high tech communities. As more and more high tech professionals moved here, companies followed.

Today living in Scott Valleys means not only having the best of both worlds – the redwoods and close proximity to the beautiful Monterey Bay, but also having the benefits of a community with economic growth sustained by high technology companies moving here, including the headquarters of Seagate Technology (the world's largest producer of computer hard drives), Borland International, E-mu Systems and GEC Plessey Semiconductors. New shopping centers and professionals buildings have also been a part of this new growth.

Scotts Valley is a great town for families, and around one third of the households here have children who attend Scott's Valley public schools. The community has a new high school and its elementary schools are ranked among the best in the state.

Activities & Attractions

Recreational opportunities in Scotts Valley include a nine-hole golf course, parks, a movie theater, and a roller rink with free skating and roller hockey programs, a skateboard park, community center, baseball and soccer fields, community pool, and an outdoor amphitheater.

Plus, the Santa Cruz boardwalk, beaches, golf courses and wineries are only a few minutes drive away. Nearby in the Santa Cruz Mountains are Big Basin Redwoods State Park and Roaring Camp Railroads.

The Pacific Ocean lends a maritime climate with warm and dry summers and mild and rainy winters. Summer is a delight here, thanks to several creeks and the San Lorenzo River that runs through Scotts Valley. The waterways provide an abundance of outdoor activities, as well as beautiful scenery for those who dine on restaurant's outdoor decks or are fortunate enough to have a river or creek front home.

Historical Tidbits

Land along the streams and river that run through Scotts Valley was once home to the Ohlone, the indigenous people who populated Northern California as early as 2000 BC, and so these locations are considered to be rich, prehistoric cultural resources. The city takes its name from Hiram Scott who purchased Rancho San Augustin, including the valley, in 1850. Scotts Valley's most famous resident was film director Alfred Hitchcock, who lived here with his family in a mountaintop estate in the Vine Hill area (1940 to 1972).