The Woods

At 402 homes, the Woods is LFII’s 3rd largest neighborhood (behind Forest Creek and Lake Forest Keys). All homes are single family attached with enclosed 2 or 3-car garages. One distinction of homes in The Woods is that because of the forested ravines the homes are built around, many make use of terrain-adaptive features, such as split level, detached garages at street level with the home below street grade, or the 2nd story sleeping level being downslope below the street level living area at the house entry. Another unique aspect of The Woods is that this is the only neighborhood further classified into 4 distinct sub-neighbor-hoods: i.e., North, South, East & West. Each of these sub-areas is a cluster, or enclave, of homes, separated from the other surrounding homes by the forested ravines.

The Woods North & South: These 2 sub-areas are ‘sister’ tracts in that they are similar homes of similar styles. The Woods North is known as “Whispering Trees”, comprised of 40 homes, and is entered off of Lake Forest via Shadyvale, or Toledo via Rim View. The homes were built by Warmington. The Woods South is entered via Timberland off of Toledo or Longwood off of Ridge Route. There are 99 total homes here, with the 44 north of Shady Rim known as “Park Place” built by Ponderosa, and the other 55, known as “Forest Shadows” built by Schmidt. The architectural style of the homes is traditional, with gable roofs and stucco siding. However, there is a greater use of architectural embellishments here, including more variegated roof structures, stone and/or timber siding and textured stucco.

The Woods East: This sub-area is comprised of 100 homes, entered either via Buffwood off of Lake Forest, or Dayton off of Serrano. These homes are known as “Lake Forest Woods” and were built by Lan-Ron. There are 6 homes on the south side of Dayton that do not technically back up to forested ravine ‘Common Area’ of The Woods, but instead border Lake Forest Park. The architecture of all homes are in the traditional style with simple gable roofs and wood or stucco siding, with little added architectural features and/or embellishments that are found in The Woods North/South.

The Woods West: There are 163 homes in this, the largest of the sub-areas. The bulk of the homes are accessed via either Partido off of Ridge Route or Elkwood off of Toledo, with an additional enclave of 19 homes on Eucalyptus, also off of Toledo. All are known as “The Woods” with all homes built by Baldwin Bros. As with all The Woods homes, the fundamental architecture is traditional, but the differentiation here is the creation of sharp angles with the exaggerated use of asymmetric shed roofs and/or flat roofs.

The lifestyle of living under the canopy of a forest is not for everyone, as with the filtered sunlight there is more shade and lots of tree litter to contend with. But for those who choose to live there, it’s COUNTRY life in the City.

The forested ravine Eucalyptus grove of the ‘Common Area’ of The Woods covers approximately 33 acres (in comparison, the LFII lake is 35 acres), with about 6000 trees. The LFII Master Association has been configured whereas Common Areas throughout LFII are managed and maintained through the Reserve monies collected with property assessments. The lake is maintained through reserves, with one-half the cost assessed to homes in the Lake Forest Keys, and the other half equally dispersed amongst the other 2,936 homes. All other Common Areas are assessed to the reserve accounts specifically to those neighborhoods in which the Common Area is located. Therefore, the management of The Woods is entirely the fiscal responsibility of Woods homeowners.