The Home Page | It’s Getting Hot In Here

This edition of The Home Page was originally emailed to subscribers on April 2, 2023. To receive Sarah Sinclair’s real estate newsletter in your inbox each Sunday, sign up at independent.com/newsletters.

I figure I’ve visited, admired, and described approximately 300 houses over the past eight years of writing our Make Myself at Home column. I’ve profiled condos, mansions, a couple of penthouses, and even a houseboat. One of my all-time favorites is the property above — shown in a vintage pic from back in the days when it was known as the Cielo Store — featured in this week’s issue and offered for sale by Steve Epstein of the Epstein Partners. Located at the top of San Marcos Pass, it’s a work/live compound that has been painstakingly perfected over the past 20 years by its owner Glen Derbyshire. I had the privilege of a personal tour by Glen, in which he shared stories galore about the decisions behind the design elements, landscaping choices, furniture placement, and more. The love and care he’s put in is so evident. He showed me the project map of the property and shared the historic photos he’s collected.

The home today is hardly recognizable from its days as a store. There’s something extremely romantic about a house with a history and a structure that gets a new life by being reinvented. I’m looking forward to hearing about its new chapter. I’ll keep you posted.

Although March is over, the madness of the NCAA tournament continues for one more day, with the final game tomorrow. If you haven’t had your fill of playoff prognostication, here’s one more set of picks. Let’s call this selection of homes Sarah’s open-house picks of the week.

The home shown above is located at 166 Butterfly Lane. It has four bedrooms and three-and-a-half baths and is located in Montecito’s lower village. It is being offered by Marsha Kotlyar Estate Group of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices for $6,195,000.

I’m told it’s all about location, location, location, but if we have one more rainy night, I’ll be dreaming of this fireplace, fireplace, fireplace!

Another new listing that’s creating a lot of buzz among the Realtors is this Spanish-style cottage at 1423 West Valerio. You might have heard me say that this is one of my favorite “hidden gem” neighborhoods in Santa Barbara — central to everything yet tucked away, with a secret back entrance to Elings Park at the end of the street. Its offered by Mike and Kyle Richardson for $1,539,000. And if all that wasn’t enough…

…it has a super-cute fireplace!

There are lots more open houses, plus everything you could ever want to know about summer camps in Santa Barbara (did someone say SUMMER?!) in this week’s issue. Enjoy!