La Jolla’s “Street of Dreams” leads to a cliffside manse

Real estate broker Peter Corrente and his wife Judy, also an agent at the Pacific Sotheby’s brokerage, have been involved in remodeling or custom-building 28 estate-quality homes in the La Jolla area, including several on Camino de la Costa, an oceanfront stretch that winds its way north from the Bird Rock area. Locals have nicknamed it the “Street of Dreams.” This is the home they’ve built for themselves.

The home at 5832 Camino de la Costa, Corrente says, is rumored to have been built in the early 1950s for heirs to the Busch brewing empire who, returning from a honeymoon in France, wanted to recreate the Tudor-style setting they’d enjoyed on their trip abroad.

The property was remodeled and expanded in the 1990s and again in 2007, when the Correntes took on a massive $4 million remodeling and expansion project that brought the house to its current configuration, with five bedrooms and five baths spread across 4900 square feet of living area.

The entrance to the property is through a lush garden courtyard centered on a multi-tiered fountain. A spiral staircase off to one side leads to an artist’s studio that sits above but is otherwise disconnected from the rest of the home. Antique French sculptures dot the grounds and peer down from the roofline.

Double entry doors at the far end of the courtyard open to an expansive great room, with a wall of windows looking out onto the cove below. To the left, a massive fireplace featuring 250-year-old sculpted breast stones imported from Liverpool, England, serves as the focal point for the sitting area. Opposite this area is a formal dining space and a wet-bar alcove. A wine room capable of storing 1200 bottles is located behind the granite-topped bar.

The spacious master bedroom likewise features a glass wall looking southwest onto the ocean. A flat-panel television is perched above a tiled fireplace. The master bath employs tile and slab granite extensively, with the shower alone boasting 14 pieces of “book matched” granite, arranged so that the veins in one piece flow nearly seamlessly into the next.

An entry door off the master leads to a secluded spa deck overlooking the sea, one of three outdoor seating areas along the cliff that rises from the cove below. Corrente has obtained a permit to install a pool in this area alongside the house but says he wasn’t interested in doing so. As a soft breeze blows in from the coast, he explains that the southwesterly-facing lot’s placement on a cove instead of facing the open ocean makes for calmer tidal action and less noise from waves crashing against the cliffs.

Back inside, the other wing of the home houses the kitchen. As with most of the other rooms in the house, Corrente has raised the ceiling height significantly, in this case having 150-year-old beams shipped from New Hampshire to provide a rough-hewn rustic look. A center island with separate prep sink spans 14 feet, and custom-designed cabinets provide extra depth for storage of dishes and appliances. Seventeenth-century imported tile surrounds the stove vent and backsplash.

Public records show the Correntes purchased the home in 2002 for $4.1 million, just a few years after a 1998 sale valued the estate at $2.2 million. Of course, that’s before the extensive rebuild that added 1000 square feet of living space got under way.

The home has been listed twice without selling — once in 2010 with an asking price of $12,900,000, again in 2012 for $10,900,000. The current asking price, unchanged since the property went back on the market at the end of May, splits the difference at $11,900,000.