Neighborhood · São Paulo/SP
Alto da Boa Vista
The high point of Santo Amaro district: a hilltop neighbourhood settled by Germans and the English, named after a tram stop, that stayed residential while the district around it became an office hub.
The neighbourhood’s story
Alto da Boa Vista is the part of Santo Amaro district that never became corporate. The name is not marketing, it is topography — it is one of the highest points in the capital — and it is also the name of a tram stop: the line that connected Praça João Mendes to the centre of Santo Amaro had the Alto da Boa Vista, Floriano, Petrópolis, Frei Gaspar and Deodoro stations along it, and it was the last tram line to be shut down in São Paulo, in 1968. The road link was only widened and paved in 1959. Before that, the neighbourhood was settled by Germans and the English, and until the 1950s it was common to hear children speaking German on the pavement. Today it is a rectangle bounded by the Marginal Pinheiros, Avenida Roque Petroni Júnior, Professor Vicente Rao and Washington Luís, with Brooklin Velho, Chácara Flora district, Chácara Monte Alegre, Vila Sofia district, Jardim Marajoara and Granja Julieta district around it — and a core of short, tree-lined streets that through-traffic goes around rather than cutting through.
Much of the internal street network sits under strictly residential zoning, where towers have no place — the product is houses and low-density condominiums, and land that comes onto the market rarely returns with the same use.
Alto da Boa Vista: the pocket of houses that Santo Amaro preserved. Altitude, tree cover and short streets minutes from the Marginal.
The surrounding area
- Clubs: the São Paulo Golf Club, in neighbouring Santo Amaro, founded in the early 20th century by British engineers from the São Paulo Railway and based there since 1915, with the course redesigned by Stanley Thompson in the 1930s.
- Schools: the Colégio Visconde de Porto Seguro, German-Brazilian, and the international network of the Santo Amaro–Chácara Flora district axis — the Chapel School and the Chácara Flora campus of The British College of Brazil a few minutes away.
- Dining and lifestyle: the Shopping Jardim Sul and the full range of services in Santo Amaro; the Market Place and the Berrini–Chucri Zaidan axis a short drive away.
- Parks: the Parque Alto da Boa Vista, 48,000 m² opened to the public in 2021 over the spring of the former Lavapés stream — where drovers used to stop to rest in the 17th century —, with a lookout point, trails and 61 recorded bird species; on the other side of the Marginal, the Parque Burle Marx.
In the Fragata archive
There are 2 developments from the portfolio in the neighbourhood (the backlinks panel lists them all): Chácara Santa Helena and Vila Alba.
