Address: 682 Catania Way
Status: On the Market
Price: $1,995,000
Editor’s note: From the darling Dutch front door to the roses climbing up to the sweet second-floor balcony, I love everything about my friend Starshine’s house. I asked her to tell this story her way, instead of penning the column myself, knowing that she might skip some of the usual real estate details. I hope that you enjoy her take. It’s a three-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath, by the way. —Sarah Sinclair
I’ve been told I’m a lousy movie date; I predict punchlines, spoil plot twists, and (yawn) anticipate jump scares. As a professional storyteller who’s penned and plotted my way through five decades, there’s not much that surprises me anymore.
But this? I never saw this coming.
It was a year after our youngest son left for college, and I was puttering around our spacious family home, rearranging tchotchkes and fluffing throw pillows, like ya do. When it hit me. Hard. Exactly the way a throw pillow doesn’t.
I had the disorienting sense of shuffling through the halls of a museum full of interesting but unfamiliar things — a collection of memorabilia from a bygone era that belonged to someone else. The notion was unquashable: This doesn’t feel like my home anymore. It’s where I am. But it’s no longer who I am.
Twenty-five years ago, my husband, John, and I handpicked this suburban sweet spot for its exceptional privacy and promise — and it exceeded our domestic dreams. Tucked neatly behind a picket fence on a cul-de-sac in Hidden Valley, Casa Roshell has hosted untold toddler playdates, teenage sleepovers, poker games, and movie nights (sullied, alas, by my unwelcome commentary). Holiday feasts and dance parties. Bake-offs and board games. Puppies and dogs. More puppies. More dogs.
The walls and windows of this happy homestead are so saturated with our memories, you could wring them out and fill moving trucks with all the giggling and yelling, singing and crying, bickering and barking stored within them.
But change has been the theme of our life here. On Day One, we scraped the cottage-cheese ceilings and added crown molding. During the Pandemic, we added a Juliet balcony and French doors to the primary suite (if you’ve gotta be stuck at home, might as well be glorious, amirite?). We’ve painted the walls so many times and so many colors, my husband swears that if you scraped it all off, the rooms would be bigger.
Life plods on. Kids grow up. Priorities shift. Our once-toy-strewn “playroom” is now an inviting “den.” The former swing-set-and-trampoline yard has matured into a hot-tub-and-firepit oasis. And after decades of precisely the privacy and promise we sought … we empty-nesters are shocked to find we want less peace and quiet — more bustle and hum.
Suddenly it’s too roomy here for just the two of us (okay, and another damn dog). Overtly empty. Unnaturally quiet. We’ve finished all the projects, renovations, and improvements we ever imagined.
Now it’s someone else’s turn to enjoy them. Time for another household to make memories here. To add their own layers of paint. To emit their own hoots, howls, and cackles throughout its sunny spaces.
As for John and me, we’re seeking our next adventure — call it a plot twist, if you like. Perhaps a downtown cottage, where we can walk to the concerts, plays, and lectures we now have time for. With any luck, we’ll find a creaky old bungalow with lots of projects that still need doing. With room for dogs. Duh.
And maybe even a few surprises.
682 Catania Way is currently for sale in Santa Barbara, listed by Kim Crawford of The Crawford Speiers Group at Village Properties. Reach Kim at kim.crawford@villagesite.com, (805) 886-8132, or visit csgroupsb.com for details.
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