Rossmoor
Rossmoor is an unincorporated community in Orange County, California. The CDP had a total population of 10,625 as of the 2020 census, up from 10,244 in the 2010 census. Rossmoor lies to the south of the gated Leisure World retirement community in the city of Seal Beach, Los Alamitos is to the east and north, and Long Beach is to the west (on the other side of the San Gabriel River, the 605 freeway and the border with Los Angeles County). Rossmoor has two retail complexes inside its borders, but only one—the Rossmoor Village Square—is now within its electoral boundaries. Despite numerous protests, the City of Seal Beach annexed a larger shopping center, the Rossmoor Business Center, in 1967. The Center has been refurbished multiple times, and in the early 2000s it was renamed the Shops at Rossmoor.
The majority of Rossmoor real estate consists of medium-sized (three or four bedroom) to big (four, five, or more bedroom) single-family homes. The majority of residential real estate is owner-occupied. Many of the homes in the Rossmoor area are older and well-established, having been built between 1940 and 1969. A number of houses were also constructed between 1970 and 1999.
Rossmoor’s median real estate price is $1,234,434, making it more expensive than 85.3% of California neighborhoods and 96.8% of US neighborhoods.
According to analysis, the average rental price in Rossmoor is presently $6,136. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than in 98.4% of California neighborhoods.
History
Ross W. Cortese, who had previously constructed the aesthetically notable Lakewood Rancho Estates in Long Beach (1953) and the Frematic Homes (1954) in Anaheim, immediately north and west of Disneyland, built the Rossmoor complex from 1955 to 1961. Cortese’s early partners in procuring the first big acres of land that would become Rossmoor included California governor Goodwin Knight and Judge Alfred Gittelson, both of whom had previously worked with him on the Lakewood Rancho Estates and the Frematic houses. (In the late 1960s, Gittelson agreed to annex his Rossmoor Shopping Center land to Seal Beach.)
Following Rossmoor, Cortese would build the first of his highly successful Leisure World gated retirement communities in the area of Seal Beach immediately south of Rossmoor. The Rossmoor neighborhood is easily identified by its red brick “signature wall,” which surrounds the whole unincorporated town. It is a feature of the Rossmoor neighborhood that distinguishes it from nearby communities Los Alamitos and Seal Beach.
Within Rossmoor, there are 3,430 single-family houses, 1 apartment complex (Accent Apartment Homes, formerly Rossmoor Manor on Wallingsford Road), and 1 town house complex (Rossmoor Town Houses with addresses at 12100 Montecito Road or 3342 Bradbury Road).
Next Neighborhood: Rossmoor East