Dinner is swerved.

Even longtime San Diegans who consider themselves experts in the city’s geography can be forgiven for overlooking Rancho Pacifica. Perched at the northernmost point of the city’s inland boundaries — past where the coastline has been given over to Del Mar and Solana Beach — the gate-guarded neighborhood contains just 142 homesites, situated along bluffs overlooking Rancho Santa Fe immediately to the north. But we’ve actually visited the neighborhood in these pages before — though it has been several years.

Let’s head back now to have a look at what the Zillow agent’s remarks dub “one of the best view lots in Rancho Pacifica...This magnificent estate defines ‘Resort-Style-Living’ with ocean views from almost every room,” continues the ad copy for 4532 Rancho Del Mar Trail, a 12,000-plus-square-foot estate constructed in 2005 (development of the neighborhood dates back just to the turn of the century, and few homes here are more than a couple of decades old).

The first few listing photos we see are of a boulder-lined pool with a waterfall, flanked by a handful of palm trees, and photographed both by day and at sunset. There’s just a hint of the home’s view potential, as the backyard seems to drop away to a steep slope just out of frame. We then enter the home through what appears to be a main foyer opening onto a living room. The high ceilings with exposed beams, the arched passageways separating rooms, and the enormous window looking into the backyard are all attractive, but a stone arch separating the entry from the living room seems a little too perfectly smooth and uniform in tone, almost like someone decided to paint drywall to look vaguely like rocks.

A little of the old arch and beam — for that olde-timey feel in your recently built home.

From here we pass down a long hallway — it already seems like quite a lot of living area is being given over to hallways, though I suppose, given the home’s size, you could dedicate twice the square footage of my whole house to halls and still have more than plenty of room left over. This one takes us to a second, cozier living room, equipped with the second of what we’re told are seven fireplaces. Wait — I suspect this may be part of the “grand upstairs [main] suite,” because we pass from this living room into what I think is a bedroom, given that there’s a bed somewhere in the massive space, which also includes another fireplace, another sofa/loveseat/recliner combo, a dining room set, a desk, and what looks like some exercise equipment. It sounds like a lot, but even adding a couple of dressers, it’s by no means a tight fit in here.

Next we pass through a bathroom with a walk-in shower that just on its own is the size of a normal bathroom, and then we’re back into another hallway, this one lined with various works of art. I hope the next room we come to, lined with mismatched desks shoved against all of the walls, isn’t the “presidential executive office” we were promised. We follow it with a few shots of bedrooms and bathrooms that are nicely-appointed and decently sized, but they look decidedly pedestrian after our visit to that massive owners’ suite.

The formal dining room isn’t necessarily special on its own, but the swirled wood table that matches a few we’ve seen in the halls is quite impressive, and if I had a dining room the size of a small restaurant, I would very much like to own it. Continuing on, we get seven straight pictures of hallways, staircases, and an elevator, interrupted just briefly to peek inside a half-bath before heading upstairs. I’m not necessarily a fan of the patterned carpet used in the public spaces (it belongs in a two-and-a-half-star hotel that’s due for a refresh), but it thankfully doesn’t continue into the bedrooms.

Now we’re looking at a smattering of view shots taken from a second story deck (and some possibly from on top of the roof). They’re quite pleasant, but I can’t say that the ocean, a few miles to the west, figures prominently in any of them. A ten-seat private theater looks comfortable enough, and even though the splotchy gray ceiling doesn’t look very good with the lights up, I imagine it helps keep focus on the screen when the room is darkened, which is how you want to spend time in a theater anyway.

We get some more bedroom shots (pro tip: make your bed and clean your nightstands if you’re trying to make a multimillion-dollar impression), including one with what looks like a basic hotel kitchenette in one corner, before continuing to a weird space that resembles a low-countered wine bar. There’s more of the indoor rock work here, though this photo is up close enough to see that there is some texture to the stones — maybe these rocks are actually real (or at least manufactured capstones), even if they look fake.

On to even more bedrooms and baths, including one that’s been repurposed as a very small home gym with another fireplace in the corner. This house has six bedrooms, but I feel like we’ve seen close to a dozen. Then there’s another office, with rich brown wood lining the walls and ceiling, built-in bookshelves, a desk, and leather chairs. The overall effect is very brown, and maybe not quite “presidential,” but it’s much nicer than the first office, which looked like a telemarketing call center. We finish with some more shots of the pool and grounds, which the listing tells us provide room for entertaining over 200 guests. I have no idea how to gauge that claim, so we’ll go with it.

Public records list a Min Xia and Ling Jia as owners of the Rancho Del Mar estate, with the last public sale taking place in late 2019 for a reported $5.38 million, a half-million less than the previous owner paid for it in 2014. The home was re-listed just after the first of the year with an asking price of $8,180,000 that remains unchanged to date.

• 4532 Rancho Del Mar Trail | San Diego, 92130
• Current owner: Xia/Jia | Listing price: $8,180,000 | Beds: 6 | Baths: 7 | House size: 12,000+ sq. ft.