Three Fountains was part of Sunset Homes’ Sunsetown strategy in Livermore, a shift away from single-style tracts toward neighborhoods built from multiple architectural series. Built between 1971 and 1973, it combined Wildwood, Quietwood, and Ripplebrook homes within a single planning framework—creating variation without abandoning subdivision order.
Rather than a uniform subdivision, Three Fountains functioned as a curated mix of Sunset Homes’ architectural lines, including Wildwood, Quietwood, and Ripplebrook—each contributing different floor plans, elevations, and living arrangements within the same streetscape.
Sunsetown planning and the multi-series model
Three Fountains emerged during Sunset Homes’ Sunsetown phase, when the company began treating Livermore as a connected network of neighborhoods rather than isolated tracts. Buyers were encouraged to choose from multiple home series and, in some cases, select from different neighborhoods within the broader development.
This approach allowed Sunset Homes to test a new suburban model: instead of repeating a single house type across an entire tract, neighborhoods could be assembled from multiple design systems while still maintaining consistent planning principles such as lot size, street layout, and landscaping.
Where Three Fountains is located in Livermore
Three Fountains is located in South Livermore and is bordered by Concannon Boulevard, Holmes Street, and Alden Lane. The neighborhood is sometimes called “the planets” because of its space-themed street names, including Saturn Way, Orion Way, and Mars Road.
 |
| Annotated aerial map of the Three Fountains neighborhood in Livermore, California. Base imagery from Apple Maps. |
Quietwood, Wildwood, and Ripplebrook in one neighborhood
The homes of Three Fountains were drawn from three Sunset Homes series—Wildwood, Quietwood, and Ripplebrook—each representing a different approach to scale and interior layout.
Wildwood emphasized larger, more dramatic floor plans with strong rooflines and expansive public spaces. Quietwood focused on wide, single-story forms with strong indoor-outdoor connections. Ripplebrook offered more compact configurations while maintaining the same architectural language.
Together, these series created variation within a unified design framework, giving Three Fountains a level of visual diversity uncommon in early 1970s tract development.
 |
| A typical home in Three Fountains via Google Street View—the Magnolia from the Quietwood Series, known for its wide frontage, triples windows, and signature Sunset styling. |
Quietwood or Three Fountains?
Some longtime residents informally refer to the neighborhood as “Quietwood,” though Three Fountains was the official tract name. The confusion came from Sunset Homes placing the Quietwood model complex on Alden Lane within the neighborhood itself.
Legacy of Three Fountains
Three Fountains remains a clear example of Sunset Homes’ Sunsetown-era planning strategy, where neighborhood identity was shaped as much by systems and variation as by uniform design.
Rather than a conventional subdivision built around repetition, it represents an early attempt to introduce architectural diversity within a planned suburban framework—an approach that would appear again in neighboring Sunsetown communities such as Whispering Pines.
More than fifty years later, it remains a visible record of that experiment in suburban design.
Related stories
- Sunset Wildwood series (Livermore, 1970)
- Sunset Ripplebrook series (Livermore, 1971)
- Sunset Quietwood series (Livermore, 1971)
- Sunset Homes — how one builder transformed Livermore neighborhoods
Comments
Post a Comment