Dos Vientos, Newbury Park: What It Is Like to Live Here

Dos Vientos is named for the two winds that move through the valley, and you feel them most on evening walks when the sun drops behind Boney Mountain and the lights come on over the tennis courts at Dos Vientos Community Park. This is a neighborhood that lives outdoors. Kids head to Sycamore Canyon School, parents meet at Starbucks in Newbury Park Plaza, and weekends start at the trailheads off Calle Alta Vista. It is quieter and more self-contained than the rest of Newbury Park, and most people who move here chose it for exactly that reason.

Life at the end of the road

Dos Vientos sits where Newbury Park runs out of valley. The neighborhood is tucked against the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains, with elevations reaching 2,500 feet at the top, and there is nothing beyond it but public open space. That geography sets the tone. Traffic is local, the air cools fast at night, and the views take in Boney Mountain and 3,111-foot Sandstone Peak, the highest point in the range.

Daily life revolves around Dos Vientos Community Park at Borchard Road and Rancho Dos Vientos Drive. At 28 acres it is the largest of the Conejo Recreation and Park District's public parks, with five ballfields that convert to soccer, two lighted tennis courts, a basketball court, two sand volleyball courts, playgrounds, picnic pavilions and a 14,000 square foot community center that runs a preschool and indoor basketball. The park connects directly into the open space, so a youth soccer game and a ridge hike can happen in the same afternoon.

Across from the Rancho Potrero equestrian center on Lynn Road, the smaller 5-acre Dos Vientos Neighborhood Park on Via Andrea is the quieter option, and the one our clients with young children end up using most.

Communities within Dos Vientos

• Aldea TownhomesAldea Townhomes

The homes: open streets and three gated enclaves

Dos Vientos was approved as a 2,350-unit community in 1988, and most of what you see today was built after the supporting infrastructure went in during 1998. That means the housing stock is relatively uniform in age, which is part of the appeal for buyers coming from older Conejo Valley neighborhoods. Larger single family homes dominate, with ranch-style homes mixed in.

Three gated enclaves sit at the top of the market. Sedona is 69 luxury estate homes and is marketed as the last new-home community built here. Palermo is gated, and listings there have included single-story floor plans past 4,300 square feet. Estancia is gate guarded. We have sold in both the open streets and behind the gates, and the difference buyers notice is less about the gate itself than about lot size, views and the finish level of the homes.

A small number of condominiums along Borchard Road and the Monarch at Dos Vientos apartment community round out the mix, which keeps a few lower price points inside an otherwise expensive neighborhood.

On price, detached homes have averaged about $1.3M, or roughly $560 per square foot, and estate homes in the gated enclaves trade well above that. Homes typically sell in about seven weeks. For how this fits into the wider market, see our Newbury Park home values report.

Schools: a 10/10 K-8 inside the neighborhood

Dos Vientos is in the Conejo Valley Unified School District, and the signature school is Sycamore Canyon School on Via Rio, a public K-8 with roughly 950 students that carries a 10/10 GreatSchools rating and an A from Niche, which ranks it fourth among public middle schools in Ventura County. Because it runs kindergarten through eighth grade, many families stay at one campus for nine years, and the school is a big reason buyers target this neighborhood specifically.

High school is Newbury Park High School on North Reino Road, a campus of about 2,080 students that competes in the Marmonte League.

One caution: not every Dos Vientos address feeds Sycamore Canyon. The district draws its elementary and middle school boundaries separately, and parts of the neighborhood are assigned elsewhere. We check the current CVUSD attendance boundary for every home our clients consider before they write an offer, and you should insist on the same.

Trails, errands and getting around

The open space is the amenity people move here for. Dos Vientos Open Space covers 1,216 acres managed by the Conejo Open Space Conservation Agency, and the adjacent 43-acre Alta Vista Open Space puts the Ring Finger Trail trailhead on the south side of Calle Alta Vista, a short walk from many homes. Hikers, mountain bikers and dog walkers share these routes.

Shopping is deliberately modest. Newbury Park Plaza at the center of the neighborhood has Albertsons, CVS and Starbucks, which covers the weekly basics. Big-box runs to Target or Home Depot mean a drive of several miles toward centers like the Village Mall, and most restaurants are east toward Thousand Oaks. Lynn Road and Borchard Road are the main routes out of the neighborhood, and if you work outside the Conejo Valley, the extra few minutes from the western edge are worth testing at commute hour before you commit.

Compare the trade-offs with other Newbury Park neighborhoods if proximity to shopping or the freeway matters more to you than open space.

Who it suits, and what to know before you buy

Dos Vientos fits families who want newer construction, a strong K-8 within the neighborhood, and weekends spent on trails and ballfields rather than in traffic. It also draws move-up buyers who want an estate-scale home behind a gate without leaving the Conejo Valley. It is a poorer fit for buyers who want to walk to restaurants or who need the shortest possible commute.

Before buying, our clients work through a short list:

• Wildfire exposure. The same open space that makes the neighborhood special is also brush. Homes here were temporarily evacuated during wildfires in 2013. Get an insurance quote for the specific property early in escrow, not at the end.
• HOA by tract. Expect the association governing your home to be specific to its section rather than one neighborhood-wide body, so dues, rules and amenities differ from one tract to the next. Read the full document package for the tract you are buying into.
• Tax bill line items. Review the actual property tax bill for any special assessments beyond the base rate, and understand what they fund and when they expire.
• School assignment. Confirm the elementary and middle school for the exact address with the district, since it is not uniform across the neighborhood.
• Address naming. You will see both Newbury Park and Thousand Oaks used on listings and records for the same streets. Dos Vientos is a neighborhood of the City of Thousand Oaks, and the county is Ventura.

Newbury Park home prices, the last five years

Questions people ask about Dos Vientos