French Park Historic District

French Park is a residential neighborhood in Santa Ana, just northeast of the downtown historic district. Its triangular layout dates to the 1878 platting of Santa Ana East. In the late 1890s, prominent citizens began building large Neo-classical and Colonial Revival homes in the southern half, earning the area the nickname "The Nob Hill of Orange County." Large Craftsman bungalows followed in the 1910s in the north, and smaller bungalows fill the eastern streets. During the 1920s and 1930s, Spanish Colonial Revival fourplex apartments were added, and more fourplexes and duplexes arrived in the late 1930s as the city grew. Many big houses became rooming houses in the 1940s and 1950s, and most have since returned to single-family use and are being restored. Mature palms, pepper trees and live oaks line the wide streets. The district holds 131 contributing buildings and one contributing site, and it received local historic district status in 1984.