San Diego book clubs – what's the point?Perhaps it’s the idea of the book club book that we find unbearable. It brings to mind that women’s marketing motto, “Pink it and shrink it.” Pink it: …
November 26, 2023
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Stories by Dave Rice
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San Diego book clubs – only for girls?
3 The Point in the Coronado Cays rivals the choicest units in Manhattan
Good real estate buyer’s agents spend a lot of time on the internet searching on behalf of their clients. Sure, it might sound simple enough to meet a client’s needs — plug in preferred bed/bath …
November 24, 2023
Chateau Beau Soleil: a twinge of nostalgia in Sunset Cliffs
Twenty-ish years ago, my weekends often involved meeting a handful of friends at my Ocean Beach apartment before a leisurely bike ride along Sunset Cliffs. We’d head as far south as we could, stash our …
November 10, 2023
A diminutive studio house from 1868 in the heart of Sherman Heights
Here at Unreal, we tend to go big, unless of course, we’re going even bigger. I make frequent jokes about walk-in closets bigger than my living room, or kitchen islands bigger than my kitchen. “Let’s …
October 27, 2023
Under the Coronado bridge is the largest group of outdoor murals in the U.S.
Original Artists Work to Restore Chicano Park MuralsArmando Nuñez is touching up a skeleton. He and I are standing amid blue scaffolding beside the wall of an I-5 ramp to the San Diego–Coronado Bridge on …
October 21, 2023
The Collins-Wellington Estate: a Spanish Revival castle in National City
At the end of August, the median sale price for a single-family home in National City stood at $670,000. That’s up more than $30,000 over the last year, but then, August was also the month …
October 13, 2023
A Spanish Manor equestrian estate in Rancho Santa Fe
With a median sales price last year of just under $3.4 million, Rancho Santa Fe retained its title as the priciest neighborhood in San Diego, and clocked in as the 18th-spendiest in the nation. And …
September 29, 2023
Ramona’s Ballena Vista: A mansion in San Diego’s backcountry
I tend to chide myself for going back to the same handful of coastal neighborhoods time and again in my efforts to dig up Unreal fodder. Then, once I’ve finished my chiding, I go right …
September 15, 2023
Asian Arts & Crafts in the pocket of La Jolla
Let’s start off this week by disclosing a little secret: while there are plenty of outlandish homes for us regular folk to gawk at on Zillow and similar real estate sites — especially in a …
September 1, 2023
Beaches, Bing Crosby, and horses running in circles
Welcome, friends, to our periodical check-in on Some House We Can’t Afford. I normally try to pepper these intros with a bit of background information on the neighborhood we’re visiting. But today, we’re headed up …
August 18, 2023
Enticed and intrigued in Encinitas
Sometimes picking a property to share on this page is a painstaking process that involves a lot of second-guessing. Have we been to La Jolla and Del Mar too many times already this year? (Actually …
August 4, 2023
Rancho Santa Fe: elevator from the 12-car garage
Sequester yourself in the Secret Ranch Welcome to “The Secret Ranch,” a 12-acre estate with more than 12,400 square feet of living space under roof located in the exclusive Covenant of Rancho Santa Fe. “This …
July 22, 2023
Descanso dream: Rancho de Sol a Sol
It’s good to get out of the city sometimes. This is something I tell myself frequently as I wander with my dog through the abundant urban canyons east of Downtown. But the background drone of …
July 20, 2023
Park Laurel: luxury on the edge of Balboa Park
It’s not often that we tour condos here at Unreal. A lot of that is due to the relative newness of San Diego. With the bulk of West Coast development occurring after the advent of …
July 5, 2023
Revisiting a clifftop Carlsbad mansion
It’s exceedingly rare to come back for a second look at houses featured here at Unreal Estate — I’ve done it maybe once or twice in the past decade, if at all. But this week, …
June 21, 2023
Discover the elegant history of the Long-Waterman Mansion, a Queen Anne Victorian in Bankers Hill
San Diego’s original city charter dates back to 1850, the same year California was granted statehood. Two years later, however, the city was bankrupt and the state revoked that charter, handing over control of the …
June 7, 2023
Experience the sprawling housing complex of this Rancho Santa Fe Mediterranean estate
As regular readers already know, we look at some pretty nice houses here at Unreal. But if you’re wealthy enough to be looking at homes in one of the country’s most expensive communities, property that …
May 26, 2023
Encinitas twinhome condo to own or Airbnb
We tend to go big here at Unreal. Whether that means massive houses or more modest ones with a long history, one thing they usually have in common is that they’re going to take some …
May 10, 2023
Golden Hill’s 1910 Ed Fletcher Spec House — a notable one-off
Colonel Ed Fletcher made quite a name for himself in turn-of-the-last-century San Diego. Arriving in town at age 16 with just $6.10 in his pocket back in 1888, Fletcher turned a job selling produce in …
April 26, 2023
Bonita – horses replaced lemons
It’s Fairly Easy to Get Bored Around Here Bonita lies in the Sweetwater Valley, nestled inside three freeways--I-805 to the west, 54 to the north, and 125 to the east. To the south lies the …
April 24, 2023
Rife Way and Sparren Avenue get chains on sidewalk
This isn’t Mira Mesa Boulevard or Black Mountain Road.” Some Rancho Peñasquitos residents who were pleased to see yellow wheelchair ramps put in at the corner of Rife Way and Sparren Avenue were astounded days …
April 17, 2023
Santaluz: a neighborhood of “Posadas” and “Casitas”
Hello, friends. Before we get going, a quick programming note: this column you’re holding in your hands (or staring at on a screen, whatever) marks the 260th installment of Unreal Estate. That’s a solid 10 …
April 13, 2023
Ortiz Rubio’s Spanish Colonial Revival in Kensington has a touch of Ignacio Martinez Rendon artwork
If you think modern presidential politics have become a bit messy in the country over the last decade and change, let me tell you a story about Mexico 100 years ago. In 1923, outgoing president …
March 30, 2023
Transcend your expectations with a 77-acre estate in Rancho Santa Fe
We’ve seen plenty of expensive homes here at Unreal over the years; gawking at the ultra-wealthy is kind of our raison d’etre, after all. But this week, we’re really going over the top with a …
March 15, 2023
La Jolla house touted as part of the Green Dragon Colony established by Anna Held
We don’t seem to care very much about old buildings here in San Diego. I spent some time looking for a nice old home to write about here, as I tend to do every couple …
March 1, 2023
Bonsall's golf land not so idyllic
Golf Course headed for the rough? Retired Fallbrook elementary school teacher Joan McConnell had just returned on Sunday (January 24) from the site of the former San Luis Rey Downs Golf Club. Two years ago, …
February 20, 2023
Encinitas Equestrian Estate
Raising large animals requires a bit more space than your average suburban tract lot yard can offer. Depending on where you are in the county, you’re going to need at least a half-acre lot, maybe …
February 15, 2023
Beat the heat on Dawes Street
We tend to spend a lot of time here at Unreal on the coast – from Sunset Cliffs to Mission Beach, from La Jolla on to Del Mar and points north. It’s pretty clear that …
February 2, 2023
Scripps Ranch seems so peaceful
San Diego’s secret missile-testing sites While hardly Death Valley, Scripps is hot in August, with any errant ocean breezes conditioned by their journey over industrial parks and tract homes on the intervening mesas. And no …
January 23, 2023
Where is Rancho Pacifica?
Even longtime San Diegans who consider themselves experts in the city’s geography can be forgiven for overlooking Rancho Pacifica. Perched at the northernmost point of the city’s inland boundaries — past where the coastline has …
January 18, 2023
Falling for Fallbrook’s Rosa Sattoria
Luxury and opulence are obviously the prime factors underpinning what we do here at Unreal. Whether that means ultramodern sleekness in a living space rivaling the size of a large grocery store, a penthouse unit …
January 5, 2023
Here’s a two-bedroom, one-bath cottage in Coronado for just under $2.5 million!
Sometimes, mistakes are made. Such was the case when I went searching for this week’s Unreal candidate. We’ve been looking at our standard enormous, obscenely-priced listings for the past couple of entries, so it felt …
December 22, 2022
Returning to the opulence of La Jolla’s Chelsea Street
Let’s talk about what makes real estate unreal, and therefore worthy of consideration by our esteemed selection committee (members: me) for inclusion in our annals. For years, it was all about the dollar signs. Show …
December 8, 2022
Who built this award-winning Del Mar seaside mansion?
Del Mar — it’s where the turf meets the surf, where horses are somewhat regularly sacrificed as a consequence of people being entertained by watching them run in circles on said turf, and where, ever …
November 23, 2022
Bankers Hill’s Grand Victorian Lady
When it comes to European-style residential construction, there isn’t much history of it here on the West Coast. Travel across the country and you’ll find houses built 300 years ago that are still standing; hop …
November 10, 2022
Pro wrestler Bill Goldberg’s “Eagle’s Nest”
Obsessive football fans might recall a defensive tackle named Bill Goldberg who bounced around the NFL in the early 1990s, with a stint for the Sacramento Gold Miners (a Canadian Football League team undertaking an …
October 26, 2022
A year without a car in San Diego
Pledge to go a year without a car According to a 2013 study published by the League of American Bicyclists, just over 6900 San Diegans rely on their bikes as a primary form of transportation. …
October 23, 2022
A bit of metropolitan flair on Harbor Drive
San Diego locals probably don’t think much about “city living.” Sure, there are no fewer than 19 locales within the county’s borders that bear the “City Of” moniker, but we’re not New York, Chicago, or …
October 12, 2022
Carlsbad’s Grand Blanc: a modern masterpiece with giant paintings of Slash, Marilyn Monroe, and Elvis
Anyone who’s been paying attention will be quick to tell you that times are getting tough in the real estate market. Interest rates have more than doubled since the beginning of the year, putting a …
September 28, 2022
The lavish abode and spectacular views of local pottery magnates WJ “Bo” and Bobbie Bohannan
“Designed by the architectural firm of Richard Requa & Henry Jackson and built by Walter Trepte between 1929 and 1932, the ‘Bohannan Estate’ is one of Mission Hills’ most prominent estates.” Or so promises the …
September 16, 2022
La Jolla on the western slope of Mt. Soledad
Sometimes, the houses become a blur. Over the years at Unreal Estate, we’ve had the chance to look at some interesting, unique properties, such as the hospital-turned-into-condos last week, a Queen Anne in Carlsbad once …
August 31, 2022