Search for homes in "The Summit, El Dorado Hills" this fall and you will pull up two different communities. One has been selling custom homes since the mid-1980s, sits near Folsom Lake, and charges an HOA fee that would barely cover a car payment. The other broke ground this year, sits on one-acre-plus lots, and opened with a press release announcing prices starting from $2 million.
They share a name. They do not share a tier, a governance structure, or, as it turns out, a stable price.
The original Summit
The Summit dates to 1985, part of a cluster of gated neighborhoods El Dorado Hills locals call Lake Forest Village, which also includes Waterford, Marina Woods, and Windsor Point. Homes here run from roughly 3,100 to just over 7,000 square feet, all custom-built on lots large enough for the kind of backyard entertaining that shows up in every listing photo. The HOA runs about $175 a month, covering the gate, common areas, and association management, nothing more exotic than that.
The neighborhood has its own small rituals. Once a year, a herd of goats is brought in to graze down star thistle and poison oak along the common areas, a maintenance choice that has become the detail every local agent mentions first. There is a park at Lakecrest and Crocker with a play structure, tennis courts, and enough grass for a Sunday barbecue. A trail off Hathaway Court connects to the Folsom Lake State Recreation Area, tracing ground once walked by Gold Rush-era prospectors. Kids in The Summit attend Lake Forest Elementary, Marina Middle School, and Oak Ridge High School through the Rescue Union School District.
Homes here start around $1 million and climb from there depending on lot, view, and how recently the kitchen was touched.
The one that opened in March
Summit Estates is a Toll Brothers community, and it opened on March 12, 2026, with a press release announcing its arrival in the Sacramento new-construction market. The address is 725 Golden Pond Drive. The community is gated, holds 41 homes across three floor plans, and sits on one-acre-plus homesites with valley views. Floor plans run from 4,000 square feet up to 5,062, with 4 to 5 bedrooms, 4.5 to 5.5 bathrooms, and garages built for 4 to 6 vehicles. The sales center opened for tours that same weekend, and buyers work through the Toll Brothers Design Studio to personalize finishes before closing.
Toll Brothers describes homes here starting from $2 million. The company builds in over 60 markets nationally, was founded in 1967, and was named Fortune's most admired homebuilder for the ninth year running in 2026. This is not a small operation testing a market. It is a national builder placing a flagship-tier product into a neighborhood whose name already meant something locally.
Children in Summit Estates attend school through the same Rescue Union School District boundaries as the original Summit, feeding eventually into El Dorado Union High School District, the same district that includes Oak Ridge High. A family choosing between the two communities is not choosing between school systems. They are choosing between two entirely different products that happen to share a name and a mailing area.
| The Summit | Summit Estates | |
|---|---|---|
| Established | 1985 | Opened March 2026 |
| Homes | Custom, various builders | 41 homes, 3 floor plans |
| Lot size | Varies by parcel | One-acre-plus |
| Square footage | ~3,100 to 7,072 | Up to 5,062 |
| Starting price | ~$1 million | Advertised from $2 million |
| HOA | ~$175/month | Not yet publicly disclosed |
| Schools | Rescue Union / Oak Ridge High | Rescue Union / El Dorado Union High |
Why the advertised price and the listed price already disagree
Here is where the comparison gets more interesting than a simple tale of two neighborhoods. The March press release advertised Summit Estates starting from $2 million. As of this September, public new-construction listings for the same community show base pricing closer to $1.7 million to $1.8 million before lot premiums are added.
That is not a typo, and the two figures may simply describe different things. A "starting from" number in an announcement reflects the pricing available on the day it was written. As homesites are released, some carry premiums for view or position and some do not, and the entry point that shows up in searchable listings reflects whichever floor plan and lot combination is currently available to build. The March figure is a snapshot of opening-week pricing. The September figure reflects what is currently available.
Neither figure is the final price a buyer pays. Design Studio selections, structural options, and homesite premiums all sit on top of the base. For a home in this price range, the gap between what gets announced and what a buyer ultimately signs for can run into six figures before anyone touches a paint chip.
The takeaway applies beyond this one community. A "starting from" price for a new gated development describes pricing at a moment in time, and it can shift as lots and plans are released. The way to find the current number is to ask which specific lot and floor plan combination produces the lowest price today, rather than relying on the figure from the opening-week press release.
What doesn't carry over between the two Summits
The original Summit's HOA fee, its goat-grazing maintenance program, and its Lakecrest and Crocker park are specific to that community's governing documents and decades of accumulated practice. Nothing in Toll Brothers' public materials for Summit Estates indicates those arrangements extend to the new community. As of this writing, Toll Brothers has not published an HOA fee for Summit Estates, which means a buyer comparing the two cannot assume the new gated entry costs anything close to $175 a month. A one-acre-plus lot community with its own gate and common areas typically carries different maintenance obligations than a nearly forty-year-old neighborhood with an established reserve fund, and the only way to know the real number is to ask for it directly rather than infer it from the older Summit's fee.
The same caution applies to resale comparisons. An appraiser or a buyer's agent pulling comps for a home in the original Summit should not reach into Summit Estates for supporting data, and the reverse holds just as firmly. One is an established neighborhood with decades of sales history and a settled sense of what a lake-view lot commands. The other is a brand-new production community still building out its first phase, where every closed sale so far represents a first-generation buyer rather than a market that has had time to season.
What this means if you're comparing the two
A buyer typing "Summit El Dorado Hills" into a portal this fall needs to slow down at the results page rather than assume every listing under that name belongs to the same neighborhood. The two communities differ in build era, lot structure, HOA obligation, and price tier by roughly double at the entry point. They happen to share zip code proximity and a school district, and that is close to where the overlap ends.
For anyone weighing a purchase in either community, the practical move is the same one that applies to any new-construction decision layered on top of an established neighborhood with a similar name: verify the HOA disclosure package before assuming continuity, ask which specific lot produces the current base price rather than the launch-week number, and pull comps only from the community you are actually buying into.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are The Summit and Summit Estates governed by the same HOA? No. They are separate gated communities. The original Summit's HOA fee, at roughly $175 a month, covers that community's gate and common areas. Toll Brothers has not published a comparable fee for Summit Estates as of this writing, and prospective buyers should request that figure directly during the purchase process.
Do homes in Summit Estates share the original Summit's amenities, like the park at Lakecrest and Crocker? There is no indication that they do. Summit Estates sits at a separate address, 725 Golden Pond Drive, with its own gated entry, and nothing in the builder's materials connects it to the older community's park or common areas.
Why does the advertised starting price for Summit Estates differ from what's currently listed? The March announcement gave a starting price as of the opening. Public listings in September show base pricing closer to $1.7 million to $1.8 million before lot premiums, which reflects the plan and homesite combinations currently available to build.
Comparing two neighborhoods that share a name takes more than a quick search, especially when one of them is still filling out its first phase of construction. If you're weighing a purchase in either Summit or trying to make sense of what a specific lot and floor plan actually costs once premiums are added, Darya Ghomeshi can walk through the real numbers with you before you make an offer.
