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is a census-designated place (CDP) and guard-gated private community in Orange County, California. The population was 13,057 at the 2000 census.
The CDP is a suburban planned community of about 4,000 homes, and one of Orange County's oldest and most expensive master planned communities. The project began in 1968, when it was envisioned as a hunting lodge, now the Lodge at Coto de Caza , and the community was completed in 2003. Around the town there are still undeveloped lots available for purchase as well as two 18-hole golf courses. Currently there are two club houses, one considered the "old club" and the other the "new club." The new club, the Coto De Caza Golf & Racquet Club, harbors the facilities of the two golf courses and adjacent nine tennis courts. The old club, located in the residential area known as "the Village," once held tennis guru and teacher Vic Braden. The old club was also the home location for the Coto de Caza Youth Swim Team. The new club finished construction of the new Spa & Sports Club building in April of 2008 that house a new fitness center with state of the art StarTrac exercise equipment, a spa with many services, a snack bar with Starbuck's coffee, and the Michael Chang, tennis hall of famer and member, lounge.
Coto de Caza contains commercial endeavors, Lodge at Coto de Caza , The Coto de Caza Golf and Racquet Club, & The Coto de Caza General Store. The whole community is guard-gated, and some of the more exclusive areas are even guard-gated multiple times. Residents shop seven minutes away in Rancho Santa Margarita, ten minutes away in Mission Viejo, two minutes away in Las Flores, or four minutes away in Ladera Ranch. Most students in Coto de Caza reside in the Capistrano Unified School District and attend Wagon Wheel Elementary, Tijeras Creek Elementary, Las Flores Middle School, Tesoro High School, and Santa Margarita Catholic High School (not part of Capistrano Unified). The community is mainly upper middle class and upper class. The majority of the community is tract homes and semi-custom homes, with collections of customs on the outskirts off the main streets. Coto de Caza is twenty minutes from the Interstate 5 freeway and five minutes from the 241 toll road to Irvine and then Riverside County.
While some residents believe that "Coto de Caza" means "Preserve of the Hunt" in Portuguese, this is erroneous. Actually, "Coto de Caza" is Spanish for "Hunt Reserve" and implies that the reserve is private.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of 7.9 square miles (20.5 km²), of which, 7.9 square miles (20.4 km²) of it is land and 0.04 square miles (0.1 km²) of it (0.38%) is water.