1927 Hacienda on 17 Acres in Montecito

Noteworthy new listings….

Can I borrow $25 million? Er, I mean $30 million? Because once you start working on the 1927 hacienda at 777 Romero Canyon Road ($25 million), designed by noted Riverside architect Robert Spurgeon Jr., you won’t want to stop until you’ve really polished the jewel. It’s a honey, with a long driveway, sexy floor plan, fabulous retro kitchen, gorgeous woodwork in the office, and much more. It all needs attention, though, and it desperately wants a pool. Luckily, there’s plenty of space on the 17-acre lot.

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There’s some old-school Montecito charm in the 1962 house at 937 Arcady Road ($5.295 million), but also elements that feel a bit suburban (which a good interior designer could really help with). Making the floors match would be a strong start.

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919 Aleeda Lane ($3.95 million) is a bit tight, just over 2,000 square feet with two guest rooms sharing a hallway bath. But the common areas feel roomy, even if it’s hard not to wish that the kitchen ceiling had been popped, too, and the location—on a cul-de-sac on the back of Eucalyptus Hill—is convenient to Montecito and Santa Barbara.

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The entrance to 30 Fairwood Lane ($2.995 million)—at the end of a Cielito cul-de-sac—is wildly dramatic, via a path that winds amid boulders and oaks. (Love the rock embedded in the wall by the front door.) The house was built in 1968, but the architecture feels 1970s, with sloped ceilings, trapezoidal clerestory windows, and little sets of steps. Unless you like someone else’s carpet in your bathroom, you’re going to need to swap out some surfaces. While the work gets done, you can always hang out in the sweet guest house or at one of the many seating areas out back, facing a greenbelt. P.S. That’s a garden of raised beds.

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At the westernmost edge of Goleta, the 1978 house at 180 Vereda Leyenda ($2.795 million) was bought in August 2019 for $1 million and remodeled. The interiors look sharp. Most of the .8-acre lot, however, is hillside, with a compressed, northeast-facing backyard. If the terrace out front doesn’t feel too exposed, the new owner might want to consider making it more of a moment.

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Eucalyptus Hill’s Augusta Lane is an outlier for the area: the ten houses built in 1962 look like they were airlifted in from the East Coast. At 1,875 square feet, 30 Augusta Lane ($2.495 million), might be the runt of the litter, with the upstairs primary sharing a bath, but there’s room to move in the backyard. Bring an architect to see if things can be reoriented to better effect.

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It’s rare to find a house with the exuberance of 417 Donze Avenue ($1.539 million), where the embrace of color extends here, there, and everywhere. (The salmagundi mosaic is more successful in the outdoor shower than on the kitchen counter.) Built in 1918 by Clarence Donze, for whom the street is named, the cottage is a tiny 846 square feet, which may or may not include the three outbuildings in back. But it has a powerful pull: I briefly daydreamed about buying it as an office…. P.S. Note that stone wall in front! And the cabinetry pass-through/dining table!

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And a few others worth checking out:
••• 1938 N. Jameson Lane #B ($2.1 million): Three-bedroom townhome in the Villa de Montecito community near Sheffield Drive.
••• 1135 Calle del Sol ($1.779 million) 1957 Westside three-bedroom with a snazzy roofline (below).
••• 811 Fellowship Road ($2.25 million): Alta Mesa four-bedroom
••• 609 San Roque Road ($1.995 million): 1962 fixer/teardown.
••• 1905 Mission Ridge Road ($2.897 million): 1956 three-bedroom, two-bath on a corner lot with views of the ocean and a neighboring Jeff Shelton house; the floor plan needs rethinking.

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