5 Great Neighborhoods in Sonoma
Get to know the best places to call home in this historic California town
By David Bolling, FrontDoor.com | Published: 11/18/2008
Sonoma's Armstrong Estates neighborhood features Craftsman homes and large lawns with lush landscaping.
Sonoma is not just the city. The name embraces the 10,000 people inside the two square miles defining the city limits as well as the 25,000 others strung in a skein of unincorporated towns lining the Valley of the Moon along Highway 12 and creeping upland into the adjoining hills and mountains.
Armstrong Estates
Armstrong Estates is local builder Steve Ledson's homage to an earlier time that may never have existed but looks great in the guise of spacious Craftsman homes with wide porches on wide streets with big lots and lots of lawn. Ledson is known as a stickler for detail and the quality of his finished work. His own restored country house sits in sparkling white splendor on three-plus acres in the center of the subdivision, surrounded by magnolias, redwoods, oaks and palms.
The neighborhood is embraced by an air of calm and serenity, the houses embellished with lush landscaping. Homes start somewhere north of $2 million and call to mind a simpler, safer era when kids rode bikes to school and played stickball in the street.