Custom Closets & Organizers in Los Altos, CA

Los Altos, Spanish for the heights, was named for land that sat highest along the railroad cutoff. Paul Shoup and friends formed the Altos Land Company in 1906 and bought 140 acres from Sarah Winchester, the first downtown lots were sold at an outdoor barbecue in March 1907, and Southern Pacific steam service began on April 19, 1908. The 1905 J. Gilbert Smith House now stands beside one of the last apricot orchards in the Bay Area, at the Los Altos History Museum. Los Altos became a city on December 1, 1952, and most of its land was built up in the two decades that followed. Roughly 80 percent of housing here is single-family detached, and 1950s ranch houses set the look of much of the city.

Los Altos homes and what they mean for storage

• 1950s ranch homes: the city's most common house, with low-pitched roofs and ridges parallel to the street. Their bedroom closets are typically wide and fairly shallow, and a layout with a drawer tower at each end and double hanging in between puts the whole width to use.
• Quarter-acre lots: the 10,000-square-foot minimum in the R1-10 zone, where most Los Altos houses sit. Ranch houses on quarter-acre parcels often come with long, low garages, and a run of wall cabinets with a ceiling rack frees the floor for cars.
• Small-lot clusters: pockets of 4,000 to 9,000-square-foot lots that the city recognizes within its single-family zones. Smaller houses here gain the most from closets that use every inch, with a top shelf for bins and hooks on the door side.

Ranch-house bedrooms are often compact, and a dresser and nightstands can take a good share of the floor. Moving folded clothes into the closet, with a full drawer bank and shelves sized for sweaters, lets the dresser go and gives the room back its floor space.

How your Los Altos visit works

Los Altos is part of our San Jose service area, served by Closet World Northern California in Hayward. A designer comes out for a free design visit, measures, plans the layout with you and leaves a complete in-home estimate, with installation in as little as 9 days. Systems are built in our own factory and installed by our own crews, never subcontractors, and most closets and garages are finished in one day. Every system includes a 7+ year warranty. Request a design visit.