I must have done something right in life. I look around me and the word magical comes to mind. I am blessed with a magical partner in Kim. I know plenty of friends who are satisfied in their marriages, but I know precious few who can say, as I do regularly, that they find themselves more in love with their partner day by day. Kim is not perfect, but whatever imperfections she has are almost unnoticeable against the backdrop of her wonderful ways. Kim and I regularly find ourselves describing our home on this hilltop as magical. The West Coast is known for its sunsets. Hell, the magazine of the West, to which I subscribe and which I regularly enjoy, is called Sunset. So, looking out towards the ocean on almost any given evening is a magical scene. But the beauty of the place is in no way limited to its place in the setting sun. Right now I am winking away the rising sun from the East as it rises over my cactus knoll with its Dr. Seuss qualities due tot he dozen or so inspired cacti that call it home and the gravel I have spread at its base to give it contrast and a certain desert cleanliness about it. Every direction I look out from on this hilltop is magical. There is a massive granite boulder right now in my foreground and besides the smooth and subtle coloring of its impenetrably hard surface, which is magnificent in and of itself, it is an ideal perch for birds and an occasional ground squirrel from which to survey the still wild-looking landscape to the North.
On the next hill over, beyond the ravine that runs between, there are three homes and another in process. What began a dozen years ago as the setting for a single-story hacienda with a traditional courtyard and native plantings has been eclipsed by somewhat constant construction. Between the hacienda and the ocean view to the West now sits a modern while two-story home that makes an intentional statement of its modernity. It is owned and lived in by a builder who has put up several other homes on that same road and continues to have commissions to do likewise for several more. I imagine to him, living amidst your work has good and bad aspects, but he is certainly making his life on that ridgeline. The newly completed architecturally interesting home across to the East of him was designed by a well-known local architecture firm and built by someone other than him. The owner is a retired university administrator and God knows that in these times that job is more worthy than most to retire from. She has called her modest but interesting home, Serenity. It is designed to be the opposite of the white modern monster across the cul-de-sac, it is intended to blend with the natural surroundings. It has an interesting curved roof that is reminiscent of a perfect Pringles potato chip. I know from touring the open house last week that inside the great room is an even greater wall of boulder that dominates the room and makes as loud a statement inside as the house is quietly tranquil on the outside. But it is not clear that Serenity will come to that hillside for some time as between the three homes over there and just below the street level, cascading into the ravine, a new house pad had appeared with the help of a large manmade retaining wall to give it purchase. I am told that one of the local builder’s subcontractors owns the land and plans to build it out himself for his own use. That probably means that it will be a slow build domes mostly at odd times, making that peaceful hillside a construction site for some time to come. Given that it is a good 500 yards away from us, the only bother it will give me is for the few days when the piledriver is hard at work setting the foundation so it will not end up at the bottom of the ravine some day.
One of the things that sometimes comes into a homebuyer’s consciousness when deciding whether to buy is the amount of construction around him that might interfere with his quiet enjoyment of his space in the ensuing years. In our early days here, my neighbor to the South, rest his soul, spoke to me about a spit of land that juts out to the West of us both and behind the property of his nearest neighbor on the other side of him. It’s one of those spots on the surrounding hillsides that you have to point out to someone and keep saying “no, not that one, the next one…” or “no, just to the right of there…”. In other words, it is not exactly in our face, but is actually twice as far away as our Pringles-roofed friends to the North. That neighbor used to say that the lot was unbuildable due to lack of water perc. A water perk or perc test is a soil and site evaluation conducted to determine the rate at which water can be absorbed by the soil in a specific location. This test is essential for assessing the feasibility of installing a septic system or an onsite wastewater treatment system for a property. The test is performed by digging a hole in the soil of the proposed field, presoaking the holes and then filling the holes to a predetermined, measurable level. Experts then measure the amount of time it takes for the water to absorb into the soil. This test is crucial because for all intents and purposes, a perc test (and subsequently, a septic system) is only necessary when a property does NOT have access to a municipal sewer system, which is the case on this hilltop. If you’re considering buying land without municipal sewer access, this test determines whether you can install a septic system, and thus, whether the property is buildable. Supposedly that distant spit of land was unbuildable, but I am never sure that is a correct assessment since there are always work-around for anything when it comes to property. It really wouldn’t matter anyway since the lot is so distant from us and would not really impede wither our view nor intrude on our peace during development.
As I have come to believe about this hilltop, it is rather impervious to local construction. There are two lots across the street, one which is quite dormant and one which has supposed to be in development for the past five years. Neither has so much as a stick in the ground at this point and even if they did begin construction, the location at the bottom of our front hillside would do no more than cause our street to get more crowded with pick-ups than we might otherwise prefer. The truth is, whoever built this hilltop wonder we call home was either very insightful about the possible construction disruption surrounding it or he just got lucky. Either way, we are clearly the lucky ones because we get to enjoy all of this equity and tranquility while the world goes on expanding and constructing to meet that expansion without disturbing our peace for the most part. That may be the most valuable aspect to this hilltop property besides its magical views and its magical gardens and all the other wonders that we get to enjoy on each and every clear day that the universe delivers to us.