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If you don’t need a ballroom with a balcony, maybe it’s time to reassess your priorities.

At the end of August, the median sale price for a single-family home in National City stood at $670,000. That’s up more than $30,000 over the last year, but then, August was also the month that the median sale price countywide topped $1 million for the first time. The community is behind only neighboring Logan Heights in the rankings of San Diego County’s most affordable suburban ZIP codes. In short, it’s not the kind of place where you’d expect to find a literal castle. And yet, today we’re going to have a look at the Collins-Wellington Estate, which the listing remarks on Zillow describe as a “Spanish Revival castle that’s an architectural masterpiece atop a sprawling eight acres of private land.”

The remarks go on to say that the home “is a highly coveted, seldom seen, unique offering in San Diego,” originally built in 1928 and spanning 5766 square feet of interior living space. Further, “the castle residence is a marvel of classic architectural design and meticulous attention to detail.” Let’s get into the tour, shall we?

We begin our journey by slipping past the gated entry and up a quarter-mile private drive to the mansion. The front looks like a big, old house, with about a dozen steps to reach the front entryway. There’s a nice westward view from the top of the stairs, but I’m not sure we’ve actually got a castle on our hands.

That is, until we get inside. Dual glass-and-wrought-iron entry doors lead us to a small foyer and then through another glass door, where we’re greeted by “spectacular stone castle walls and gold gilding” that I love, and some hexagonal orange floor tile that I don’t. Still, the arched passageways and curved staircase, decorated with more wrought iron and Spanish tile inlay, combine with the rest of the space to sell me on the “castle” idea.

Castles needed towers to spot and then defend themselves from invading forces. Plus, they look cool.

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From the entryway, we move on to the “35 x 25 grand ballroom” that is also the living room and features “expansive windows, a spectacular 18-foot high cathedral ceiling, and a balcony overlooking the ballroom, from which live musicians serenaded dancers in the ballroom below.” At nearly 900 square feet, I’ve lived in apartments smaller than this room.

Next we head up a flight of stairs (I’m assuming they’re the same ones we saw in the entry) to an open loft that’s empty, save for a large sleigh bed with a bare mattress. I don’t like this at all – the listing says it could be an extra bedroom or office space. But if it’s not an office, it should really be an extra living room or something. I don’t need my bedroom to be completely open to the downstairs.

Back downstairs, we pass through another, smaller living room with a brick fireplace and into a dining room that also, for some reason, has a bunch of couches arranged in a square at one end. But since there’s another 700 square feet of living area in this room alone, there’s still room for a dining table that seats ten, plus an elaborate glass-doored hutch. The exposed beam ceilings and “inlaid onyx floor” are nice touches as well.

When we get to the kitchen, I get a bit confused. First off, it looks like the cooking area actually occupies at least two distinct rooms, with sinks in each and a row of base cabinets dividing the space. The tile work doesn’t look like it’s from 1928, but it also isn’t new — it’s something along the lines of what I’ve seen in a lot of homes from the 1950s and early 1960s. Fair enough: the listing does say the kitchen was “updated,” it just doesn’t say when. The cabinetry here is mismatched and comes from distinctly different eras, though there are certainly the “cupboards galore” promised by the listing. The greenish granite where one countertop and the room-dividing island were upgraded also doesn’t go with anything. All that said, there’s a ton of space here and it looks perfectly functional, even if the style isn’t for me.

Moving on, we peek at “a sunny breakfast nook (below the castle’s tower),” a large but unremarkable bedroom, and then a bath that I’m assuming is part of the primary suite. This bathroom is something else: we’ve got blue and white checkerboard tile on the floor, yellow and orange tile on the walls, one antique wall-mounted sink and another supported by a pair of stainless steel legs. There’s a chest of drawers built into one wall, and what looks like two showers flanking the recessed tub. I’m guessing maybe there’s a toilet behind one of these shower doors, because I don’t actually see one in the room. Some more bedrooms and baths seem well-preserved and in close-to-original condition. There are even some of those old toilets that I’d expect to feature a wall-mounted tank, but I don’t see any, which I don’t entirely understand.

Now we’re back outside, and these new exterior pictures do their best to make the home seem castle-esque. We even get to see the tower referenced earlier. But I’m struck by how close some of the other houses seem to be. We are in the middle of the city, after all, and this eight-acre lot is kind of long and skinny, so even with the long driveway up the hill, it’s not like we’re dealing with an entirely secluded fortress here. At least there are some great westward views of the Downtown San Diego skyline.

“This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for you to live in a true castle, own a piece of history, and be a part of the ongoing renovation and evolution of this incredible property,” the listing concludes. “The Collins-Wellington Estate is unique, above and beyond anything else on the market. More than a home, it gives you the emotional experience of living within an architectural work of art.”

Public records list a Moncrieff Partnership as the castle’s owner of record; the assessed value of less than $340,000 is likely a result of both a lengthy ownership and favorable tax status granted to historical properties by the Mills Act. It was listed for sale (for the first time I can find in MLS records going back at least 25 years) in late September; the $4.5 million asking price remains unchanged to date.

3600 Paradise valley Road | National City, 91950

Current owner: Moncrieff Partnership | Listing price: $4,500,000 | Beds: 5 | Baths: 5 | House size: 5766 sq ft