Wallis Ranch | Dublin

Wallis Ranch Neighborhood Guide | Dublin

Wallis Ranch is the last piece of the Dublin development puzzle, and you can feel it the moment you drive in. This was the final large parcel in the city — 184 acres at the far north end, up Tassajara Road past where the older East Dublin neighborhoods give way to open hills — and because it came last, the master planner Trumark got to design the whole thing as one cohesive community rather than stitching it together over decades. It earned national recognition for it, taking the National Association of Home Builders' 2017 Community of the Year award, which is not a small thing for a Dublin subdivision.

Here's what makes it different from almost everything around it. Most neighborhoods are built by one or two builders with a handful of floor plans. Wallis Ranch was built by eight different builders across nine distinct neighborhoods, with the bulk of construction running from the 2016 grand opening through about 2021 — so the range of housing here is unusually wide. Let me walk you through it, because the name on the sign tells you a lot about what you're getting.

At the entry end is the attached product. Riverton by KB Home is townhome-style condos, roughly 1,500 to 2,160 square feet — a real entry point into new construction in Dublin without a single-family price tag — and Trestle by Warmington Residential is townhomes in the 1,850-to-2,200-square-foot range. Step up to detached homes on compact lots and you've got Haven by Meritage (alley-loaded, rear-garage homes around 1,840 to 2,500 square feet), Driftsong by Warmington (three-story homes, roughly 2,200 to 2,800), and Ivy Oak by Taylor Morrison (three-story homes, about 3,000 to 3,360). The more traditional detached neighborhoods are Fielding by Trumark — the farmhouse-style homes the community is known for, around 1,950 to 2,700 square feet — and Citron by Pulte, roughly 1,975 to 3,100. And at the top, the larger homes: Barnwell by D.R. Horton (about 2,950 to 3,460 square feet, some plans with a second primary suite) and Bridgecroft by Emerald Homes, the estate product pushing from 3,300 past 4,300. One community, and genuinely something for almost every buyer — from a first condo to a move-up estate.

One thing to set expectations on: the lots are not big. This is a higher-density master plan by design — much of the product is attached, three-story, or alley-loaded on compact lots — so if you're picturing a wide yard with room to spread out, Wallis Ranch will feel tight. That's the deliberate trade. Trumark dedicated more than half the entire site to parks, open space, and a water-quality basin, and the payoff for smaller private yards is an enormous shared amenity base.

Which brings us to Kindred House, the thing everyone remembers. At the center of the community sits a 17,000-square-foot resort-style clubhouse with a 75-foot pool, a fitness center, a community garden, a yoga patio, fire pits, and event space — the kind of package you usually only see in a destination resort. A mile-plus of trails threads through native grasses, orchard plantings, and hand-laid stone walls, leaning into the site's agrarian roots. And at the gated entrance, they preserved the Antone School — a genuine one-room schoolhouse that closed in 1943 — as a nod to what this land used to be.

On location: you're at the north edge of Dublin, trading a little distance for a lot of newness. The Dublin Boulevard retail corridor — Fallon Gateway with its Super Target, Hacienda Crossings, Persimmon Place with Whole Foods — is a few minutes south, the I-580/I-680 interchange is an easy reach, and both Dublin/Pleasanton BART stations are a short drive for commuters heading toward Oakland, San Francisco, or the South Bay.

A couple of things to verify before you fall for a specific home. Schools first: Wallis Ranch sits right on top of several Dublin Unified attendance boundaries, and those lines have moved more than once — when Cottonwood Creek K-8 opened in 2018, and again when Emerald High opened its permanent campus. The neighborhood has generally fed Amador Elementary and Fallon Middle, with the high school assignment the piece most likely to have shifted between Dublin High and Emerald High. Verify the exact assignment by parcel address with the district before you write an offer, because in this corner of Dublin it genuinely varies. Second, there's an HOA funding Kindred House and the common areas; confirm the dues against the current MLS listing, since they differ depending on whether you're buying a condo, a townhome, or a single-family home.

If you're trying to figure out which of the nine neighborhoods — and which builder's floor plan — actually fits how you live, that's exactly the kind of street-level sorting I can help with.

— Rebecca Rook, Living Tri-Valley | Compass