This Place in Pacific Grove is Half a Home at a Third of the Price
A little home that punches above its weight in a time where maybe that's all we can hope for
As we barrel towards the edge of the falls that is year three of this pandemic with the good guys in charge telling us we can’t really afford to give every US citizen free test kits unless they got through insurance first—because, you know, that Aflac duck’s gotta eat—I couldn’t help but be reminded this weekend, in a few different ways, that no matter how much we want to go back and have a do-over, to find something from the Before Times and build on that, it’s gone baby gone.
The first thing came on Saturday morning. The King Tide made an appearance on the briny shores about a block from my house. The King Tide is sort of a trailer for what the end times are going to look like (or at least 2030 and beyond) when the canard of net-zero carbon emissions isn’t reached.
Or, by traditional definition, it’s the highest predicted high tide of the year at a coastal location which comes about because the sun and the moon are aligned at perigee and perihelion—which is a little factoid I picked up online and spat out at a kids’ birthday party (scroll down for more on that) and positively sounded like I was hard-selling some astrological grift.
But trust me, it’s a thing.
Sweet Springs Nature Preserve is a little inlet that looks out on a bay, and then in the far distance, there’s a sand spit that waves roar on the other side of.
Intrepid and overly territorial local surferatti were paddling out on the other side of that after doing some version of Lawrence of Arabia to walk out and over the dunes to get to the precious right which is one of the best in California—if not all the world—when the conditions are just so (as they were on Saturday.)
But there in front of me, my little boy, all seven years of him, was busy identifying the shorebirds that the well-aligned celestial orbs which still control our bodies and spirits brought with them to our extended backyard.
The tiny bridges that were built with care over the wetlands were practically submerged in tidal flotsam, and he watched as the local mallards waited for it to recede to swim under and go locate their little nests and food supplies; their protests were well-documented by the Boomerish birders with their giant telephoto lenses and Archean recording devices.
It was, for the dozen or so stopping by to check in on nature’s parade route, a joyful respite, a place where it felt—if even for a moment—that the massive majority of human inhabitants on this planet had disappeared, that we were back to square one… that the egrets and cormorants and grebes had taken the wheel.
My kid covered his eyes with his hands, shaking his brow, and cast a look over the expanse, “I don’t see any other people when it’s like this,” he said. And I couldn’t help but feel a little pride and also wonder if he wasn’t somehow making fun of me just out of frame.
Later that day it was to the birthday party of his best friend. He’d somehow managed, through a pandemic that has lasted a third of his life, to come through the other side still besties with his first little soccer buddy and kindergarten partner in crime.
The first day of school back, they recognized one another immediately, even in masks and hoodies, and ran across the blacktop to embrace. And then they talked the familiar talk of Pokemon (which somehow they discovered alone together.)
And that was that. All the late-night conversations his mother and I had about whether he would adjust and what the kid would be like on the other side turned out to be a loss leader. He had, in fact, proven to us that our own projection and lament, our own lost little souls sucked away by the hours of screen time and a permanent feel of detachments—wasn’t his thing at all.
His thing was, in fact, just being in school and making other kids laugh with his impressions of TV teenagers and contestants from the British Baking Show; who knew he who he had such range(?)
At the party I met, for the first time, the mother of one of his new friends. She and her husband and their three kids moved from DC during the second month of Covid.
The California natives (her, Northern, him, Southern) decided they wanted to be back on the West Coast, “Where we could see water, and the kids could ride bikes and be out on trails.” It sounded like such a simple task, finding that spot and getting them all from there to here. And though I asked a little about how they found this little spit of land, it seemed there were stories upon stories there to unpack. So she just left it at, “We’re happy now, with the schools, with the friends they’ve made. With the fact that we can go outside and explore. It’s ...not like DC.”
I went and talked to my son’s best friend’s dad for a few minutes. An educator, he said there’s still a lot to figure out with school and everything. But for now, manning the bounce house, he seemed to have it all under control. “We figured you guys might be heading to the mountains,” he said, recalling a conversation I couldn’t remember having had about my plans to be up in the Sierra again one day. It must’ve come sometime between setting up little soccer goalies and waiting around Kindergarten pick up. “No, we mostly just stayed here, in the house, wondering what’s next.”
“Yeah,” he said, “What’s next.” And then he started to laugh, like a real, deep one from the belly on up. It surprised even him. I laughed too. And then I went and got another piece of room temperature Dominos and watched my kid sit expectantly by his best friend’s side as his birthday gift was saved for last.
135 1/2 17th St Pacific Grove, CA 93950
I realize it’s gas station pricing tactics on this little white picketed fence cottage straddling the Pacific Grove/Monterey border, but what can I say? I’m a sucker for home prices with only one comma in this particular area code.
Beyond the bay window, the arched entry, and the still in-tact native rock fireplace, there is not much else original about this 600-something-square foot little guest quarters from 1915.
Whatever built-ins and wainscoting came with the OG seem to have rolled out with the tide and been replaced by a cocaine hangover bathroom tile mess and a Home Depot “More Doing”-themed kitchen where they somehow coated it in sheets of little shower squares to give it solid 2014 flip vibes. Whatever, whatever, whatever.
Some nice shelving in the front room and upgrades on the kitchen plus masking off the edges and taking down the sponge paint is a task even the most timid with a brush can handle.
Add in some antique lamps from the local consignments for ambient, good measure to avoid the LED screaming nightmare from above would go a lot to restore sanity.
Not only is it a nice 1/2 address to go with its understated Disney The Little House anti-capitalist charm…
…but it’s a less than four-minute bike ride (12-minute walk) from the red gingham tablecloth with parmesan and red pepper flake shaker paradise of Gianni’s pizza; ditto the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Pelican Pizza (it’s the saltwater intrusion that makes the crust), and Red’s Donuts.
On the Beach Surfshop on Lighthouse is also a quick skip and a jump. They’ve got plenty of used guns to pile up on the rack you build over your lovely happy hour for two on a second date deck, and they’ll even let you know where you can paddle out without getting made fun of. There’s room for not one, but two of your harps and even the little bonus room add-on feels necessary rather than a misbegotten weekend project.
Too bad there’s not a 3/4 address option.