Mesa Modern With a View

All it took, they say, was one of those breathtaking doses of natural splendor Santa Barbara is famous for. From the balcony of their blufftop home, Glennis and Jim Malcolm recently flashed back to that fateful autumn day in 2010. They had been house hunting nearby. For fun, their real estate agent urged them to take a look at an oceanfront fixer-upper outside their budget.

Jim’s memory: “It was mid-November. One of those drop-dead clear days — a 10 out of 10.” The unobstructed view stretched from Point Mugu to the western horizon of the Santa Barbara Channel and out beyond the islands. Stunned, they drove in silence back to their Los Angeles home.

“We were looking for an escape,” remembers Glennis, a UCSB grad. “We were looking at Wyoming or a studio in New York City. San Francisco. La Jolla. We were all over the map”