The Haven

December 10, 2020

I don’t think of myself as a particularly sentimental person, but I am definitely sentimental about my late father’s home on the central coast of California.

None of the homes I have grown up in have inspired me in a similar way.  I have ridden past the three homes we owned on Sandcastle Drive and observed their changes impartially.  The olive tree we played under at 919 is long since gone, the front façade remodeled. The wrought iron fence at 1432, through which one could see the ocean has long since been filled in with solid panels – who knows if a pool installed by Dad still exists behind the fortress walls?   And 1531 changed color but no more windows were added to the view side – which is what I would have done.

Even the retirement house on Mill Neck Road in Williamsburg that I once aspired to inherit, lost all of Dad’s carefully chosen plantings, in support of a new family with small children in need of a proper yard – which I think Dad would have really appreciated.

But the house in Cambria, a small artist’s colony pinned between the ocean and mountains north and west of Cal Poly at San Luis Obispo, was different.  Dad and his second wife, Kelly, bought the beleaguered structure in a good neighborhood and completely rebuilt it, adding a west wing consisting of a master suite atop new basement storage space. I wish I could adequately capture the thoughtful choices Dad made and included when he designed the addition and all of its interior and exterior improvements.  He added architectural details to give the stucco rancher an identity as craftsmen-inspired by building an open gable over the double front door to open up the low brow of the extended eave.  He punched skylights in the eave over the kitchen windows to lighten up the north side of the house.  He brought the house to all one level using mostly hardwood, stone and tile, including the rear solarium (my favorite room). He installed a generator and non-potable watering system for the yard.  He planned for aging in place. 

More importantly, Dad aspired to an ocean view, which is why we had three homes in literal ascending order on Sandcastle drive.  He would have preferred a whitewater view, but a tract home two to three miles uphill from the beach was more attainable.

Cambria was no exception.  As the lot dropped away to the rear, expanding the view of ocean and sky, Dad sought permission from the adjacent land owner to limb-up, thin or remove trees and undergrowth annually in order to preserve his “wistful vista.”  The new and improved Buckley Dr achieved a “U” shape, and the rear interior of the “U” featured a deck and much glass to maximize light and air. I spent many evenings watching the sunset from a living room chair.  When Frank invited the neighborhood in for Dad’s Celebration of Life, more than one person exclaimed upon entry: “So this is what’s been hiding behind that front door!”

After Kelly died,  friends told us the interior choices made (flooring, cabinetry, tile, paint, colors) reflected a wrestling match of compromise between her taste and Dad’s.  But it worked… even after Dad redecorated the house with the more traditional furniture, artwork and art glass collections he and Mom had carefully chosen and acquired over their 48 year marriage, trucked back to California from Virginia and stored in that 1000 SF basement.  The house became immediately inviting, familiar and comfortable. 

And after Gary died, it became a refuge – and a haven for creating new memories and associations.

I would fly into SoCal, and Frank would drive us the 5 to 8 hours up to the central coast.  In daylight or dark we usually took Pacific Coast Hwy (PCH), and I’d have a chance to reacquaint myself with an old friend, the Pacific Ocean. In the clear, crisp air of winter, the night lights dazzled, outlining the shape of the coast.

When we finally pulled off of PCH and drove up the hill to Dad’s neighborhood, the house would glow in festive welcome, Frank’s monochromatic strings of Christmas lights draped and threaded through Dad’s carefully curated bushes and trees. Beneath that open gable, the greenish-aqua double doors with stained glass sidelights often sat ajar, as Dad listened for the car – and opened wide to welcome us in.  We were home, despite being responsible adults well over the age of forty, with homes of our own.

This place — the whole of it — the house, the sea, the emerald green hills (from winter rains), the rambling neighborhoods, the village of Cambria — became our haven, our respite, our escape.  And it was primarily Dad’s creation. He built a wonderful family and professional life in SoCal; he built an active social retirement in Williamsburg; but I think he was at his happiest and most himself in “Cambria by the Sea”, in the house on Buckley Drive that he built with Kelly, where you could hear the surf breathe at night.

Which is why I don’t think I could bear to drive by now and see any change.

For now, I want the memory to remain perfectly encapsulated, like the photo my niece Donna took of Dad’s dining room table, set for what would be our last Christmas dinner together.  Beyond the table, through the sliding glass doors, you can see the ocean brimming with sunset, and a garland of Christmas lights hanging in swags from the deck railing.  It could not have been more perfect.