San Diego Arrival

After arriving at LAX, I drove down to San Diego with the goal of visiting friends.  I guess I’ve gotten to know the 405 and the 5 well enough by now to have my own landmarks along the way; one thing I was on the lookout for was an easily accessible In-and-Out Burger stand like the one I had visited a few years ago in Ontario.  I was successful, and even having a friendly little chat with a UCLA alum while waiting for our burgers didn’t hurt the experience of this pit stop!

Finally, I arrived in San Diego, and firmed up plans for the evening’s visit with Mark and Nancy.  They’ve appeared in the blog before, when they stopped by Hawksbill Cabin during their cross-country trip in their RV – there’s a post about their visit here.  Our goal was to reconnect, have some beers at one of the numerous local breweries in San Diego – but most importantly, to check out their very cool house, which Mark designed and they built over the last year or so.

We’ve been friends with Mark and Nancy for years – they lived in DC a long time ago before moving to Santa Barbara, and then five years ago they moved down to San Diego.  During that time, besides the cross-country trip, architecture, and personal training, they’ve been keeping busy doing real estate projects.  On this trip out, I got to visit them in the latest one, which I think showcases some excellent urban living design.

They found the lot by chance, it had been part of a three-lot parcel that had housed a service station.  The service station went out of business and the three lots were broken apart; this particular one was deep but only 25 feet wide.  They went through the process of deeding the property and then rezoning so that it would be reclassified to something where they could build a house – settling on mixed use commercial/residential.

The city required a 12-foot set back from the lot line, so that left them with 13 feet to build on – that’s where the urban design comes in.  They came up with a 2-bedroom, 2-bath home with excellent amenities and plentiful outdoor spaces to enjoy the wonderful San Diego weather.  Plus, they’re only a half block away from one of the many San Diego breweries – I’ll post on a few of them next time – and they overlook a thriving street scene.

Good design always gets me thinking about my own potential projects. While we may never do it, I’d love to rework the addition to Hawksbill Cabin, and if we did, I’d like to try and adapt the grade beam foundation approach they used in San Diego, and we might apply some of the same materials to the exterior.  I think they’re flexible enough to look good back here in the hollow, too!