Emergency Crime Scene and Biohazard Cleanup in Highlands, CA

Highlands, also called the San Mateo Highlands, is an unincorporated census-designated place in San Mateo County, perched on top of Pulgas Ridge west of the city of San Mateo.

Highlands was first listed as its own census-designated place in the 2020 census, after the former Highlands-Baywood Park CDP was split into the separate Highlands and Baywood Park CDPs.

The 2020 census counted 2,359 residents in Highlands, living in 836 households, with a median age of 46 years.

Developer Joseph Eichler built most of the neighborhood between 1956 and 1964, creating more than 700 mid-century modern homes — the largest Eichler development ever built.

The Highlands' Eichler homes are post-and-beam 'California Modern' designs inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright, featuring walls of glass, atria, skylights and in-floor radiant heating, and the tract even includes the experimental X-100, one of only two Eichler houses built of steel instead of timber.

Eichler insisted on selling his Highlands homes to buyers of all races and religions at a time when housing discrimination was widespread, and he resigned from the National Association of Home Builders in 1958 over its refusal to support open housing.

The Highlands Recreation District, formed in 1957, runs a year-round swimming pool, tennis courts, a gym, a playground and a community social room for residents.

The volunteer Highlands Community Association has published its newsletter, the Highlands Lowdown, continuously since 1954, and has run an annual Fourth of July festival with a parade and fireworks since 1960.

From the ridge, Highlands homes look west over the Lower Crystal Springs Reservoir and the San Andreas Fault, and east across San Francisco Bay to the San Mateo Bridge and Mount Diablo.

Because it sits at the top of the ridge near the Highway 92 gap in the Santa Cruz Mountains, the Highlands pulls in Pacific fog and typically runs five to ten degrees cooler than Peninsula cities just to the south.