Siteline | A Provençal Farmhouse in the Middle of Montecito

Certain houses just feel like they’ve been renovated with a sure hand. Such is the case with 1970 East Valley Road in Montecito. The shape of the 1987 house is fairly conventional, but the redesign and finishes make it both of the moment and timeless.

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Bedrooms: Three.
Bathrooms: Three and a half.
Size/Acreage: 3,398 square feet / 1.3 acres.
Price: $5.995 million.
Last sold: for $4,928,065 in December 2018.
Listing agent: Suzanne Perkins of Compass.

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The motor court is past iron gates, pushed off the road so that it feels farther away. And of course the house looks as if it teleported from Provence.

The current owner has been busy during the short time he/she has had the house. The recent renovation by architect Marc Appleton raised the living room ceiling, a vast improvement; added a powder room; changed the finishes in the bathrooms; updated all sorts of infrastructural elements; and converted the garage to playroom, which can easily be reversed. And no less important, the design is impeccable.

If you want to keep up the work, there are plans, also by Appleton, for “a pool, pool cabana, art studio/ADU, a guest/staff apartment above the two-car garage, and an additional pergola.” The ADU would be especially welcome; while the master is lovely, the guest rooms (as seen in the last two photos below) don’t have the same appeal of the rest of the house.

Then again, guests would most likely be spending most of their time on the terrace, which has covered and uncovered sections.

While on the terraces, particularly with the water feature running, you can barely hear the road. That changes the farther away you get from the house. Perhaps it sounds like the flowing of the Rhone….