Three Fountains is a Sunset Homes neighborhood in Livermore, California, built between 1971 and 1973 during the company’s Sunsetown era. Unlike earlier Sunset developments built around a single group of models, Three Fountains was part of a broader system that allowed buyers to choose from multiple Sunset home series and select from several planned neighborhoods.
Three Fountains became home to models from three Sunset Homes series—Wildwood, Quietwood, and Ripplebrook—but those series were not exclusive to this neighborhood. Their model complexes were located elsewhere within Sunsetown, reflecting Sunset Homes’ unusual approach of separating home design from neighborhood identity.
Where is Three Fountains?
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.
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| Annotated aerial map of the Three Fountains neighborhood in Livermore, California. Base imagery from Apple Maps. |
Sunsetown and the separation of homes from neighborhoods
During the early 1970s, Sunset Homes began marketing Livermore’s expanding residential landscape as Sunsetown—a connected network of neighborhoods rather than a collection of unrelated subdivisions. Buyers could choose from available Sunset home series and then select a participating neighborhood where that design was offered.
The result blurred the traditional relationship between a subdivision and its model homes. A buyer living in Three Fountains might have chosen from a model series whose showcase homes were located elsewhere, while the neighborhood itself became part of a larger development system.
Quietwood or Three Fountains?
The overlap between model names and neighborhood names created lasting confusion. Some longtime residents refer to Three Fountains as “Quietwood,” because the Quietwood model complex was located within the neighborhood. However, Quietwood was a Sunset Homes series, while Three Fountains is the neighborhood.
The Sunset Homes series represented in Three Fountains
The neighborhood included homes from three Sunset Homes series: Wildwood, Quietwood, and Ripplebrook. These series represented different approaches to size, layout, and lifestyle, but they were not independent subdivisions. They were part of a larger menu of designs Sunset Homes offered across its Livermore communities.
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| 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. |
Together, these series created variation within the larger Sunsetown framework, where a neighborhood no longer had to correspond to a single set of home designs.
Sunset Homes series built in Three Fountains
- Wildwood Series homes (Livermore, 1970)
- Ripplebrook Series homes (Livermore, 1971)
- Quietwood Series homes (Livermore, 1971)
Legacy of Three Fountains
Three Fountains remains one of the clearest examples of Sunset Homes’ evolving approach to suburban development. Rather than defining a neighborhood through a single collection of model homes, Sunset separated home design from neighborhood identity, allowing different series to be built across a connected network of communities.
More than fifty years later, Three Fountains remains a visible record of that experiment in suburban planning—an era when Sunset Homes was rethinking how homes, neighborhoods, and buyers could be connected.
Collection
Livermore — the places that built a modern city
This collection explores the new-home communities, builders, and neighborhoods that transformed Livermore during the decades when ranches, orchards, and open fields gave way to the neighborhoods that define the city today.
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- Granada Village — Livermore's first master-planned suburban community
- Whispering Pines — Sunset Homes’ multi-series neighborhood in Livermore
- Sunset Homes — how one builder transformed Livermore neighborhoods
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