West Murphy, Sunnyvale, CA

West Murphy is the part of north Sunnyvale that sits above the downtown Heritage District. It begins on the blocks of North Murphy Avenue just past the historic downtown strip and runs north toward Highway 237, taking in part of the North Mathilda Avenue corridor and the residential streets around Morse and Borregas avenues. Downtown restaurants and the Caltrain station lie just south, in the Heritage District.

Much of the housing is detached homes built around 1950 on streets such as Borregas and Madrone avenues, mixed with townhouse and condo complexes and older apartment buildings, some dating to the early 1960s.

Murphy Park, on North Sunnyvale Avenue near the downtown edge, holds the state historical landmark marking the homesite of Martin Murphy Jr., who arrived in 1844 with the first wagon train to cross the Sierra Nevada and is credited as Sunnyvale's founder. On Morse Avenue, Columbia Park sits beside Columbia Middle School and the Columbia Neighborhood Center, which the city runs jointly with the Sunnyvale School District and which has a gym, a fitness room and a medical clinic. The 18-hole Sunnyvale Golf Course on Macara Avenue fills the area's northwest corner, with Highway 237 cutting through the course.

North of 237, Moffett Park holds office and research campuses for Google, Lockheed Martin and other employers. Nearby public schools include Bishop Elementary and Columbia Middle, with Fremont High serving the area through the Fremont Union High School District.

On Houseberry, West Murphy scores 4 out of 5 for public spaces, 3.5 for curb appeal and 3.1 for nearby merchants. It is also the sunniest of Sunnyvale's 10 neighborhoods in our data, with about 80% of possible sunshine, August highs near 79°F and roughly 15 inches of rain a year.