San Carlos incorporated in 1925, has about thirty thousand residents, and calls itself the City of Good Living — that is the official motto, and it has been in use long enough that the city published an oral history under the name in 2000.
Laurel Street is the spine: a walkable downtown with a farmers market on summer Sunday mornings and James Moore's "Balancing Act" sculpture outside Harrington Park, decorated for whatever the town is celebrating. Burton Park, the largest, holds the Hometown Days carnival each May. The Caltrain station is in town, and so is its original 1888 depot, built of Almaden sandstone in the Richardsonian Romanesque style and on the National Register since 1984 — Caltrain and SamTrans are both headquartered here, and the line has run electric trains since 2024.
Two other things shape the place. San Carlos Airport is inside the city, a general aviation field with the Hiller Aviation Museum beside it, so some streets hear light aircraft. And the town has a genuine industrial past — Dalmo Victor built the first big electronics plant here in 1944, Eimac, Varian and Lenkurt followed, and the population quadrupled in a decade.
Photo: Pi.1415926535, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
San Carlos, in the questions people ask us.
Where do San Carlos students go to high school?
Out of town. San Carlos High closed in 1982, so students attend Sequoia High School in Redwood City or Carlmont High School in Belmont, both in the Sequoia Union High School District.
Does the San Carlos School District cover the whole city?
No — its boundaries do not take in all of San Carlos. Check the specific address before you assume which elementary school it feeds.
Is there aircraft noise?
San Carlos Airport is inside the city and it is a working general aviation field, so some neighborhoods hear light aircraft. It varies a great deal by street — stand on the property before you decide.
How is the commute?
Caltrain is in town and has run electric trains since 2024, and US-101 has interchanges at Brittan Avenue and at Holly Street. There is no Interstate 280 interchange inside the city; the nearest are north and south of it.
I have held a California real estate license since 1989, and in that time the Bay Area has changed almost beyond recognition. What has not changed is how a good move happens: through someone who knows the neighbourhoods, knows the people, and can make the right introduction at the right moment. I call myself a real estate consultant as well as an agent because most of the job is advice — when to sell, what to fix, which town suits the way you live — and the connections I have made since 1989 are there to be used for my clients.
A consultant, an agent and a connector.
Marisa Roman Wachhorst
