Noteworthy new listings….
Built in 2023, 1045 Via Tranquila ($16.995 million) cuts a dashing figure: sleek, midcentury-inspired lines combine with expanses of glass, doors that disappear, and a courtyard pool for the kind of experience one associates more with a hotel. (That goes double for the side-by-side guest rooms with slatted partitions in the shared outdoor space.) I’ll go take a look today to see whether it lives as well as it photographs—and to find out to what degree it’s exposed to the neighbors on Via Fruteria across the ravine. P.S. Love the freestanding gym.
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1213 Harbor Hills Drive ($12.5 million) is a “coming soon” listing, so it hasn’t been open, but one look at Google Maps and you can tell that a big plus about the property is that there’s a lot of buffer in front of it. The five-bedroom house is at the end of the cul-de-sac, dropping down the hillside with more south-facing outdoor areas than is the norm for Alta Mesa. (The pool is a schlep from the main living areas but worth it—look at that waterslide!) Interior surfaces run a little basic for this price, but we’ve all seen worse.
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The crescent-shaped house and pool 802 Park Lane West ($11.35 million), above E. Mountain Drive, face each other like a pair of parentheses, making the property feel like a world of its own. A hallway runs along the south side of the house, which means the living and dining room in the middle get a tad less light than one might like. The rooms at either end—the primary bedroom and, across a breezeway, a pool house—benefit from more exposures. It all seems very livable, if you don’t mind the garage being on the lower level, but aside from the primary bath, I don’t think much has been done to the interiors since the house was built in 1999.
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The architecture of 418 Seaview Road ($4.595 million) has the 1970s written all over it; inside, the kitchen, dining, and living areas are open-plan, with the primary off to the side of the high-ceilinged living room. Upstairs are two rooms, one of which has a skylight than opens like a window (rather than a window proper) and a second bath. The draw is location: Montecito Union School is a two-minute walk away.
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What a world where 110 Santa Rosa Place ($3.8 million) can reasonably ask nearly $4 million. Sure, it’s two houses from Shoreline Park, but it all needs to be redone, and the architecture is clunky. I gave myself permission to skip the broker’s open, which was a mistake, because I can’t make heads or tails of the floor plan. It says the entry is to the left of the garage, when the photos clearly show a front door to the right, entering directly into the living room. And where do those stairs in back lead?
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I would’ve liked to have been there when the seller of 940 Camino Viejo Road ($3.495 million) explained that, no, the propped-up camper would not be removed prior to listing. Whatever, no one is claiming the 1995 house—”the first home built on Camino Viejo, offered for the first time ever”—is turnkey. The place is full of fascinating design choices, in particular, all that brick. To the left of the front door is a breezeway (currently housing an old car), the garage, a huge storage space, and a two-room guest apartment—a lot of space that could be put to better use if merged into the house proper.
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One of seven casitas in El Rancho Hacienda, 489 Mountain Drive ($2.15 million) is a tenancy-in-common property—the single lot has been divided up among the seven parties. There’s more on TICs here, but bear in mind that much of that discussion is about townhomes and apartments, and this is a charming freestanding building dating from the 1940s and subsequently expanded. One of the three bedrooms realistically functions as an office, seeing as how you have to pass through it to reach the primary. Rare for a home of this size and vintage, it has a living room and a family room, as well as a decent-size kitchen. Plus: an itty-bitty office—or a solitary-confinement cell—in the front yard.
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And a few others worth checking out:
••• 0 E. Alamar Avenue ($6.495 million): 28-acre parcel above San Roque with permitted plans for a Mediterranean compound; “additionally, a developer has the possibility to create a luxury subdivision of up to six estate homes.”
••• 1937 Birnam Wood Drive ($5.25 million): Three-bedroom, two-and-a-half spiffer-upper (with tennis court) on East Valley Road.
••• 43 Via Alicia ($4.45 million): 1991 pink—inside and out—spiffer-upper with five bedrooms, a big view, and rather a lot of stairs; I counted eight separate levels, including the garage.
••• 219 Conejo Road ($3.695 million): 2011 four-bedroom.
••• 5553 Camino Ceralvo ($3.2 million): 1963 three-bedroom above N. Patterson Avenue with a really groovy stone chimney flanked by windows (below).
••• 216 E. Figueroa Street ($2.275 million): The southwestern condo in the four-unit Las Villas del Figueroa complex across from the police station; a private elevator connects the three levels.
••• 1302 E. Cota Street ($1.695 million): 1932 two-bedroom, one-bath cutie at the APS end of Cota with a decent-sized backyard (albeit one reached via stairs).
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