Sunnyvale, California real estate
Sunnyvale has grown from a sleepy town of 28,000 in 1957 to a whopping 132,940 people.
The arrival of Lockheed in 1956 had a lot to do with the spurt of housing at that time, and with the
development of peripheral industries, the town blossomed.
The average price for a home in Sunnyvale, California, in August 2004 was $693,591. The average days
on the market for houses is 20. Only Morgan Hill can beat that DOM, with 19 days.
There are 54,308 housing units, with single family homes heading the list with 21,042. There are 3,919
attached, and 25,126 multiple units. Over 42% of the homes have 3 bedrooms.
Sunnyvale has hundreds of high-tech firms. There are 17 parks, 68 tennis courts, a 200 seat theater,
two golf courses, a softball complex, community and senior centers, two theater groups and a dance
company, and all of the sports activities anyone desires.
Sunnyvale California history
Sunnyvale and the rest of Santa Clara was settled by Ohlone Indians, perhaps for 10,000 years. The
present day Moffett Field was the location of a large indian village of Posoimi.
In 1842, a Land Grant deeded Rancho Pastoria de las Borregas to Estrada and Inez Castro. Mountain View
and Sunnyvale were developed from this land grant.
In 1850, Martin Murphy Jr. who left from Missouri for California buys a portions of the Rancho, and plants
wheat. He has his house, the first frame house in Santa Clara County, shipped from New England.
Murphy gives the right-of-way to the San Francisco and San Jose Railroad to lay tracks through his
property, and they agree to use Murpy Station. Later on Lawrence Station was built, Lawrence Station Road
was constructed, and is now known as Lawrence Expressway.
In the late 1870, wheat production dropped off as many settlers were buying small plots of land and
establishing fruit orchards, further enhanced in 1888 by the refrigerated rail car.
In 1901, residents were informed that could not use Encinal or Murphy for the name of their Post Office,
so they chose Sunnyvale for the name of their town, formerly advertised as "Beautiful Murphy".
Orchards begain being cleared for homes in the late 1940's, presumably after World War II. Eichler was
the best known builder in the area.
Lockheed Aircraft moves it's headquarters to Sunnyvale in 1956, and from then on nothing has been the
same. There was a small house at the start of the road into Lockheed, used primarily and extensively for
promotion of the builders who were building housing tracts all over the place for the relocated and new
people who flocked to Lockheed and Sunnyvale.
In 1961, after a lengthy battle for the preservation of the historical Murphy House adjoining Murphy Park,
the house was demolished when everyone thought the battle was won, and the house would be
preserved.
Fast forward to Steve Wosniak and the development of the first personal computer, Apple.
It is no wonder that Sunnyvale developed at the center of Silicon Valley.
For more information on other cities in the Santa Clara (Silicon) Valley area, go to
Bay Area South
