Woodside Priory School

Portola Valley is a town in San Mateo County, California, United States. Located on the San Francisco Peninsula in the Bay Area, Portola Valley is a small, wealthy community nestled on the eastern slopes of the Santa Cruz Mountains.

The Portola Valley School is a one-room schoolhouse that sits at 775 Portola Road in Portola Valley, California. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. It is currently used for Portola Valley town-hall meetings.

Windy Hill Open Space Preserve is a regional park located in San Mateo County, California and operated by the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District (MROSD). It is readily identifiable from the flatlands of the South Bay, as it is the only "naked" part of the peninsula range (not forested). The Windy Hill Preserve comprises an important 1132 acre (4.6 km2) stretch of conservation land on the eastward side of the Peninsula Range (Santa Cruz Mountains), rising from the valley road near Portola Valley to the 1905 ft (581 m) summit from which it gets its name. Access to the summit is easy (0.5 mile moderate grade) from State Route 35, the ridge road along the Peninsula Range. Facilities focus on trails for hiking and mountain biking, with around 14 miles (22 km) of hiking trails. Paragliding and hang gliding are permitted with a special use permit, and are popular activities in the winter months when there are East winds. In clear weather there are magnificent views from the summit, and indeed the entire upper end of the park, across the campus of Stanford University to the San Francisco Bay and beyond to Mount Tamalpais and Mount Diablo. Downtown San Francisco is visible, as well as the Pacific Ocean. Most of Windy Hill is sheltered from the prevailing weather, which comes in off of the Pacific Ocean. A nice day further down can be very cold, windy, foggy or rainy at the summit. The area is rich in wildlife; among the species likely to be seen are California mule deer, coyote, California vole, white-tailed kite, American kestrel, band-tailed pigeon and California quail. There are signs warning about mountain lions, but bobcats are more common. Rattlesnakes and gopher snakes may also be found. Banana slugs and, in season, California newts are common. Spring Ridge Trail runs from the Portola Valley trailhead to Skyline Boulevard through the open, grassy part of the preserve. It, like most of the lower trails, is a fire road, open to cyclists as well as hikers and equestrians. Two trails further to the south (Hamms Gulch and the Lost Trail-Razorback Ridge-Eagle Trail combination), are single-tracks not open to cyclists. These trails run through forested country: oak, fir, buckeye, bay laurel, madrone and one or two redwoods. Because the far shore rises so steeply, Sausal Pond appears to be black or murky green, rather than sky-blue. This marshy pond is home to a few coots and the occasional mallard, to dragonflies and bullfrogs. Shoreline access is limited to not more than one or two hundred feet, much of that surrounded by bush and accessible only to the determined.

Casa de Tableta, now known as the Alpine Inn, and formerly known as Rossotti's Saloon and Zott's, was built c.1851 in Portola Valley, California at the junction of Arastradero Road. It was listed as a California Historical Landmark in 1969 and on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. As of 2020, it's the second oldest saloon in operation in the state of California.Some additional historical names of the building include Félix Buelna's Casa de Tableta; Fernando's Store; Philpott's; Stanton's Saloon; Chapete's Place; The Wunder; and Schenkel's Picnic Park.

Our Lady of the Wayside Church is a modest church built in 1912 for the then-growing Catholic parish of Portola Valley by a combined effort of Jewish, Protestant and Catholic members of The Family, a San Francisco men's club that owns a nearby rural retreat. The building itself was constructed of steel-reinforced concrete with stucco finish in the Mission Revival style, with the added Georgian element of the main doorway with its scrolled pediment. Mission Revival features include the tiled gable roof with exposed rafter ends, round-arched windows and buttressed side walls.James Rupert Miller, an architect and a member of The Family, gave the assignment of designing the church to a rising young draftsman at his firm: Timothy L. Pflueger. The building was 19-year-old Pflueger's first commission. Pflueger drew on his familiarity with Mission San Francisco de Asís in his native San Francisco for inspiration.In 1977, a plaque was placed proclaiming the building as California Registered Historical Landmark number 909. The church was also added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.The historic church suffered extensive damage in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, and was recommended for demolition by structural experts. Instead, it was repaired by its congregation at a cost of US$600,000.

Palo Alto University (PAU) is a private university in Palo Alto, California that focuses on psychology and counseling. It was founded in 1975 as the Pacific Graduate School of Psychology and became Palo Alto University in 2009. Palo Alto University offers two undergraduate degree programs: a Bachelor of Science in Psychology and Social Action and a Bachelor of Science in Business Psychology; four graduate programs: a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology, a Psy.D. in Clinical Psychology as part of a consortium with Stanford University; an M.A. in Counseling and an M.S. in Psychology. PAU subscribes to the practitioner-scientist training model, which emphasizes clinical practice along with scientific training.PAU has an interconnected relationship with Stanford University and the Stanford University School of Medicine. PAU maintains its doctoral program in conjunction with Stanford University, often employs its students in Stanford research laboratories, and houses faculty members who teach at both institutions. The chair of the Stanford Department of Psychiatry holds a membership on the PAU board of trustees.

Rancho Cañada del Corte de Madera was a 3,566-acre (14.43 km2) Mexican land grant in present day Santa Clara County, California given in 1833 by Governor José Figueroa to José Domingo Peralta and Máximo Martínez. The name translates as "the valley where lumber is cut". The grant was located west of today's I-280, and south of San Francisquito Creek near Searsville Lake, and covered most of the Portola Valley.

Rancho el Corte de Madera was a 13,316-acre (53.89 km2) Mexican land grant in present day Santa Clara County, California given in 1844 by Governor Manuel Micheltorena to Máximo Martínez. The name translates as "the place where lumber is cut". The roughly triangular shaped grant was west of today's I-280, and bounded on the north by Alambique Creek and San Francisquito Creek, on the south by Los Trancos Creek and Matadero Creek, and on the west by what is now Skyline Boulevard. The grant surrounded Rancho Cañada del Corte de Madera which extended along the Portola Valley. The land grant included parts of present day Woodside, Ladera and Stanford University.

Ladera is a census-designated place (CDP) in southern San Mateo County, California, adjacent to Portola Valley. Primarily a residential community, it comprises approximately 520 homes, governed by the Ladera Community Association. The ZIP Code is 94028 and the community is inside area code 650. The population was 1,557 at the 2020 census.

Foothills Park is a 1,400-acre (570 ha) park and nature preserve in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California, United States, within the city of Palo Alto. From 1969 until 2020, only residents or city employees of Palo Alto and their guests had lawful access to it, a restriction that has sparked "decades-long" controversy and a 2020 ACLU lawsuit. The park was opened to the general public on December 17, 2020.

The Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve is a 483 hectares (1,190 acres) nature preserve and biological field station formally established as a reserve in 1973. The biological preserve is owned by Stanford University, and is part of the Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences. It is located at 37.408°N 122.2275°W / 37.408; -122.2275 south of Sand Hill Road and west of Interstate 280 in Portola Valley, San Mateo County, California. It is used by students, researchers, and docents to conduct biology research, and teach the community about the importance of that research. The preserve encompasses Jasper Ridge and Searsville Lake (actually a reservoir) and the upper reaches of San Francisquito Creek, along with the latter's Corte Madera Creek and Bear Creek tributaries.

Corte Madera Creek (Spanish for "a place where wood is cut") is a 7.3-mile-long (11.7 km) creek that flows north-northwest to Searsville Dam and then joins with Bear Creek to form San Francisquito Creek in California.