TractTales | Neighborhood history of the Tri-Valley

If the arch became the defining detail of late-1960s tract homes, the Monterey balcony may have been its two-story counterpart. Throughout the 1960s, builders across the Tri-Valley embraced Monterey-inspired designs in subdivisions from Dublin to San Ramon. Cantilevered second-story balconies, stucco exteriors, and symmetrical two-story façades began appearing across rapidly expanding suburban neighborhoods. The style traced its roots back to California’s earlier Monterey Revival movement, but by the postwar era, production builders had simplified and adapted its most recognizable features—stucco walls, low-pitched roofs, and projecting second-story balconies—for large-scale tract development. And for a brief period during the 1960s, the Monterey style became one of the most recognizable two-story forms in Tri-Valley suburbia. Monterey style homes across the Tri-Valley Dublin: an early leader in Monterey style Dublin was one of the first Tri-Valley communities to feature Monterey...