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Monday, Mar 18, 2024
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Del Mar’s Varied Charms Come in Small and $18.75M Packages

There is something different about Del Mar. Arriving from the south or the north on Highway 101, this charming community looks like it could be a village in Canterbury, England, instead of a beach town in Southern California.

The town stretches from its broad beaches and sandstone cliffs, up the hill toward the east almost to the border of Interstate 5. Just 1.8 square miles, Del Mar is home to some of the county’s most interesting real estate. From small beach cottages to 10,000-square-foot castles, Del Mar’s houses delight the visitor at every turn, winding up through the hillsides or down among the avenues fronting the beach.

Del Mar is renowned for its beaches and its beachfront housing. Recently, a home right on the sand at 1936 Ocean Front sold for $18.75 million, one of the highest-priced sales in 2013. Peter Lewi, owner of Masterpiece Realty Associates, had the listing. Lewi, who is also a practicing lawyer, opened this office on Camino Del Mar in 2008.

The home — which makes a striking, sophisticated impact when seen from the beach — was designed by San Diego-based architect Jorge Engel of Jorge Engel & Associates and built by Mark Bauer of Solana Beach-based Bauer Construction Inc. Lewi said his client bought three contiguous lots in 2002 that totaled 105 feet of ocean front property. Two older homes were torn down, and the land was reconfigured into two lots — 50 feet to the south and 55 feet to the north.

“The south lot was sold and a new home was built there a few years after the existing 1936 Ocean Front home was built [on the 55-foot lot] by my client,” Lewi said.

The home went on the market in early 2013 for $22.95 million and sold in October of 2013. It is 4,000 square feet with three bedrooms, five bathrooms on an 8,250-square-foot lot. The buyer’s agent was Keith Wagner of Realty Place in Cardiff-by-the-Sea.

“The home was designed to take full advantage of its spectacular oceanfront setting,” Lewi said.

He said most homes along the beachfront are lot line to line and, as a result, are “quite boxy.” This one was designed to accommodate a lap pool in the courtyard and to emphasize the “interplay between the indoor and outdoor spaces.”

Del Mar was once a tiny beach town considered too far from San Diego to be a practical spot to live for many working families. The founding of the University of California, San Diego in 1960 changed that perception and brought a thriving scientific community to the area. And with that change comes the inevitable rise in the cost of housing. The median price in 2013 for a single-family home in Del Mar was $1.5 million, up 13.21 percent from 2012, according to the San Diego Association of Realtors.

Incorporated in 1959, Del Mar is home to 4,500 people — including movie stars, rock musicians, sports figures and people who were lucky enough to have lived there most of their lives.

I was lucky enough to have worked in Del Mar for Psychology Today magazine in the early 1970s. I stayed there for nearly 27 years, surviving all of the acquisitions and reorganizations by the parent company of the magazine. Its offices were spread around the town in various buildings, quaint little houses, even one of the buildings from the original old hotel overlooking the beach. This was the building where I worked; I was lucky indeed.

Andrew Nelson — president, CEO and owner of Willis Allen Real Estate, which this year celebrates its 100th year in San Diego — agrees with me. During a recent visit to his office in La Jolla, Long reminisced about Del Mar when he was a boy there. Long’s family came to Del Mar in the mid-1950s, back when Torrey Pines Road was a concrete two-lane highway.

“We did not have a grocery store in the 1950s in Del Mar. We had to come down to La Jolla once a week to the Safeway,” he said.

Nelson learned his lessons about coastal real estate in San Diego County at a very young age. He describes a time at 16 years old when there was nothing past Nob Avenue but vacant lots selling for about $500 each. His dad told him to go buy one.

“I bought a 1955 Chevy instead,” Nelson said.

Later, when he was just getting into the real estate business he sold a lot for $10,000 in Del Mar nearly identical to the one he considered at 16.

“I checked on the price of my Chevy, and it was $700,” he said. “That was when I realized the thing to do was invest in real estate.”

Willis Allen now has six offices in San Diego County. The office in Del Mar opened in 1973.

Please email information on luxury real estate to Stephanie R. Glidden at sglidden@sdbj.com.

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