Happy Birthday, Atherton!

Today is Atherton’s birthday. The town with America’s priciest zip code was incorporated on Sept 12, 1923. At age 91, Atherton is a late bloomer in terms of fame. It has only been a few years since the small city covering 5,049 square miles first caught national and international attention.

In 2010, Atherton was number two on Forbes magazine’s annual list of most expensive zip codes in the United States. It didn’t become number one until last year, after turning 90, but once it takes the lead, it seems determined to stay ahead --- real estate prices here have risen 40 percent this year.

Seven Atherton mansions were sold for more than $10 million in the first quarter of this year. Home prices here have continued going strong since. As a recent story of Nightly Business Report puts it, last year’s buying frenzy for Atherton homes in the $5 million range has been pushed into “the ultrahigh end” this year.

While Silicon Valley real estate is all hot, what makes Atherton the hottest?

According to Ken DeLeon, number one on the Wall Street Journal’s year 2012 list of top earning American real estate agents, the Forbes report naming Atherton the most affluent zip code in America helped promote the mansions here, because many home buyers, particularly Chinese, are “prestige driven.”

DeLeon told Patch that about half of his ethically Chinese clients are local and the other half from China.

According to DeLeon, who expects to earn $500 million this year to remain America’s top real estate agent, he recently sold an Atherton mansion for $13.5 million to a Chinese client who had never done a home tour here.

“They bought the home based on our high quality video that really showcased the home, and their associate saw the home,” said DeLeon. “the actual buyer bought the home based on their recommendation and the video.”

Another local real estate agent, a Chinese American who chose not to publicize his name, said some tycoons in China might not even need to know what an Atherton mansion looks like before purchasing it.

“As soon as they hear the zip code is 94027, they will tell their associates in America to put down a deposit,” he said.

If these Chinese typcoons and many other enthusiastic buyers are attracted to Atherton’s prestige, how did Atherton become so prestigious? What sets it apart from other cities of Silicon Valley?

One of the most apparent differences between Atherton and the rest of the Bay Area is its lack of a downtown area. Although Cupertino also doesn’t have a historic downtown district, the strip malls along the Stevens Creek Boulevard and De Anza Boulevard serve the same purposes --- dining and shopping. Atherton, on the other hand, has few restaurants and no chain grocery stores. There are Safeway and Trader Joe’s in Menlo Park, just a few miles away, but no signs of big stores are seen within the city limits of Atherton. That means Atherton residents have the best of both worlds --- the convenience of city living and the serenity of country life.

An idyllic lifestyle was actually what the first generation of Atherton residents fought for when they decided to incorporate their own city. Historical records clearly state that Menlo Park in 1923 tried to incorporate its lands to include Atherton, known as Fair Oaks then, but failed because Fair Oaks property owners insisted on keeping their community strictly residential.

The Fair Oaks committee members beat their Menlo Park counterparts by arriving in Sacramento early, but soon they realized that they could not use Fair Oaks as the name of their new city, because the State of California already had another city named Fair Oaks. Then they chose to honor Faxon Dean Atherton (1815-1877), who had been one of the first property owners in their community.

Although Atherton is not called Fair Oaks, shady oak trees tower over all the neighborhoods here, keeping the entire town cool and fresh through the summer. Though located in the north end of the bustling Silicon Valley, Atherton enjoys rural air quality.

Perhaps the pristine air and verdant scenery are what keeps bringing families with an average annual household income of $220,000 into Atherton. Ironically, after millennia of attempts to conquer nature through human civilization, now in the most high tech Silicon Valley, the most successful people choose to live in the closest place to nature. What’s the takeaway from this?

Photo Credit: Photographed by Ryan Selewicz / Provided by DeLeon Realty