Emergency Biohazard Cleanup Services in Ladera, CA

Ladera is an unincorporated census-designated place in southern San Mateo County, adjacent to Portola Valley, and is governed by the Ladera Community Association rather than a city government.

Ladera comprises approximately 520 homes in just 0.43 square miles, at the bottom of the eastern slope of the Santa Cruz Mountains.

The name Ladera is Spanish for 'hillside,' chosen by the community's founders to reflect the Spanish history of the land, which was part of the Rancho Corte de Madera Mexican land grant.

Ladera began as a housing cooperative: the Peninsula Housing Association, formed by members of the Stanford and Palo Alto communities, bought 260 acres of the former Ormondale Ranch for $155,000 on July 31, 1946.

The cooperative hired noted landscape architect Garrett Eckbo to lay out the community, and architects Joseph Allen Stein and John Funk designed several of the earliest model homes; early members included author Wallace Stegner and klystron tube inventor Sigurd Varian.

Before Ladera, the Ormondale Ranch bred racehorses, including Ormonde, an English champion stud that never lost a race.

Ladera is bordered on the west by Stanford University's Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve.

Ladera had a population of 1,557 at the 2020 census, living in 538 households with an average size of 2.89 people, and about 89% of its occupied homes are owner-occupied.

In December 2018, Business Insider named Ladera the most educated town in the United States.

In November 2021, after a petition signed by owners of 391 of Ladera's 534 properties, the community formally removed the old 'Caucasian or white race' residency restriction from its covenants and replaced it with a statement supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion.