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Stories by Dave Rice

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Three stories of seaside lounging in Oceanside

“Let’s start with the reason to own this perfect home, the beach!”

Oceanside, San Diego’s northernmost city, is often overlooked in discussions about the region’s most exclusive real estate, which tend to focus on coastal North County cities such as Carlsbad, Encinitas, or Del Mar. But while ...

Virgin villa on Rutgers Road

No one has lived in this modern Mediterranean manse

Listing materials for a recently-constructed southern La Jolla mansion pose a question they’re more than happy to answer. “What would you call a residence of high style, beauty, and sophistication, intelligent design and refined in ...

Point Loma’s largest Italian Renaissance mansion

Portion of Point Loma Nazarine once known as Lomaland on the peninsula

Rosecroft is a historically-designated estate occupying nearly two-and-a-half acres atop Point Loma. Built in 1912 by architect Emmor Brooke Weaver, who oversaw the design of dozens of local residences between 1904 and 1945, the Italian ...

The “permanent vacation” feel

This house is made to be shown off

The newly-constructed estate at 7430 Hillside Drive in La Jolla includes five separate elevator-accessed levels of living area totaling nearly 6300 square feet of living space carved out of the side of Mount Soledad. “A ...

Studs-out remodel in Coronado

With an eye toward retaining the home’s historic character

This week we visit a “forgotten historic Coronado home” that’s been “brought back to life!” The 2400-square-foot craftsman at 1302 8th Street in Coronado was originally constructed in 1901 but has undergone extensive renovation since ...

A “striking contemporary classic”

Once home to founder of online music store MP3tunes

This week we present you with an opportunity to “reside in one of the largest homes on the breathtaking Del Mar beach.” “Take pleasure in the ultimate seaside lifestyle,” invite listing materials for the residence ...

Frontal attack on gig economy

Suit against Lime to end freelance scooter work?

A Northern California man working as a "Juicer" for electric scooter-share operator Lime has filed suit against the company, claiming it improperly classifies thousands of workers as independent contractors in a system designed to skirt ...

The epitome of California canyon living

Architect also designed San Diego Zoo structures and enclosures

“Hidden behind beautiful hedges,” this 1924 Bankers Hill estate at 3372 Front Street “is truly unique in downtown San Diego and the epitome of California canyon living.” So promise the listing materials. The residence, which ...

Marine Lair

Oceanfront hideout is home to “SD’s 29-year-old wunderkind”

Occupying a prime oceanfront plot in La Jolla’s esteemed Barber Tract is a mansion the owner has dubbed “Marine Lair,” a home the listing promises is “built entirely different than any other home in San ...

San Diego's last ocean front lots

32 empty spaces left – from Oceanside to Imperial Beach

Thirty-six years ago, the Reader surveyed the San Diego County coastline in search of any remaining vacant, buildable land along the coast. In January of 1982, we found a scant 79 parcels of land remaining, ...

Dignity through showers

East and North County welcome them, but not so much central San Diego

"Choice is something a lot of service providers and volunteers trying to provide help to others don't often consider," Think Dignity director Anne Rios tells me when we sit down at her group's North Park ...

A west coast Statue of Liberty

40-foot monument to Virgin Mary in San Ysidro

A cross-denominational faith group on Friday (October 5) announced their plans to construct what they're describing as a West Coast Statue of Liberty on a San Ysidro hilltop overlooking Tijuana. Modeled after the Virgin Mary ...

Bankers Hill Mansion exemplifies both Roaring Twenties exuberance and refined European design

Explore the neo-classical symmetry and grandeur of Andrea Palladio’s 16th-century architecture

From its perch atop Bankers Hill, the mansion at 435 West Thorn Street sits as an example of both Roaring Twenties exuberance and refined European design. “This one of a kind 1926 Italian Palladian home ...

A simple fix-and-flip can go horribly wrong

Will this part of Ebers Street ever be the same?

A long-derided construction project at 2269 Ebers Street in Ocean Beach, spearheaded by Curtis Nelson of Nelco Properties, officially suffered its death blow this spring; after failing to attract a buyer at a foreclosure auction, ...

Electric shock

East County residents fuming over four-figure power bills

San Diegans have been shocked by skyrocketing electric bills over the last two months, with many customers being told by San Diego Gas & Electric they owe two or even three times as much as ...

La Jolla luxury high rise

With a view “encompassing the La Jolla hills, the village, and the famous cove”

Let’s have a peek at “the only luxury high rise in the village of La Jolla,” 939 Coast. Eponymously named for its oceanfront location along Coast Boulevard, the building is currently comprised of 153 units ...

Veterans for Peace hit roadblocks in third year

But claim some victories against Miramar Air Show

The Miramar Air Show, gearing up for its 65th year next weekend, is billed as the largest military-themed air show in the United States. For the last three years, a group of anti-war military veterans ...

She won without a camera

Instagram levitation technique shows up at MOPA contest

For thirteen years, the Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park has been sponsoring a youth photography competition. The contest is open to students in kindergarten through high school in San Diego and Tijuana. Winners ...

An entertainer’s dream with panoramic ocean views

An entertainer’s dream with panoramic ocean views

Mission Hills' premier entertaining house during the Roaring 20s

Home received an “outstanding house front” award from the American Institute of Architects’ San Diego chapter

Mission Hills' premier entertaining house during the Roaring 20’s

PB church opens door to refugees

ICE brings them asylum seekers

A month into its launch, a network of temporary shelters for asylum seekers arriving at the world's busiest border station in San Ysidro is beginning to take shape. The Safe Harbors project, spearheaded by Dr. ...

A dusting of snow at Ahvsan Ranch

A 376-acre “private oasis nestled high atop Palomar Mountain"

Shots of a sun-drenched pool deck are essentially a requisite box to check when developing marketing materials for a San Diego-area mansion, but how many elite local homesteads can be accurately portrayed with a dusting ...

Famosa and Nimitz plans point to density

Housing commission provokes Point Loma neighbors

Since learning about the revival of a decades-long plan to develop affordable housing on a five-acre parcel at the intersection of Famosa and Nimitz Boulevards, Point Loma residents have been voicing stiff opposition to any ...

Food trucks for homeless, toilet tank monitors

San Diego student ideas earnest, but don't make final cut

‘You just drop it into the back of your toilet tank,” explains David Vesay. “From there, it’s continually monitoring your water quality and you’ll get a message on your phone if it ever detects any ...

La Jolla’s oldest structures

The neighborhood is named for Phillip Barber, a wealthy New York heir

This week we look at “a unique opportunity to own a collection of three meticulously restored, award-winning historic homes” in La Jolla’s Barber Tract, adjacent to Windansea Beach. Home to some of La Jolla’s oldest ...

You won't get rich charging Lime scooters

Stop! Please unlock me, or I'll call the police

Whether gaudy orange (Mobike), canary yellow (ofo), nearly-neon green (LimeBike), even more orange (Uber-owned Jump electric bikes), or a comparatively unimposing matte black (Bird electric scooters), dockless bikeshare has descended upon San Diego’s streets. Depending ...

KPBS shutters local paper reading

Goodbye Union-Tribune, Reader and North County Times for those who can't turn pages

Last week, San Diego State University's KPBS broadcasting operation quietly put an end to providing local content on its Radio Reading Service, a special radio subchannel featuring volunteers reading newspaper and periodical content for those ...

A home built by city-designated master builders

The Quayle brothers also built part of Balboa Park

The historic mansion at 2440 C Street in Golden Hill was not built to cater to San Diego’s latest crop of nouveau riche. Remote-controlled, gated driveways? Nope, but a custom wrought iron gate still leads ...

Shhh — San Diego is better deal

Cappuccino and fast food cheaper here than L.A.

Tourism has long played an outsized role in the local economy. According to the San Diego Tourism Authority, 35 million people visit the city each year to enjoy its sunshine, sandy beaches, and potholed streets, ...

No wonder they went after the bike tracks

City bureaucrats work on Pt. Loma opponents of low-income housing

A crowd of Point Loma residents gathered at Hervey Library on Thursday evening (June 14), offering vociferous opposition to a proposal that would place 83 units of low-income housing on a vacant city-owned parcel at ...

Views from every room (and deck)

The California Dream as seen from Del Mar

The estate home at 110 15th Street in Del Mar is described as a “one-of-a-kind compound,” its one-third acre lot nestled into a hillside just across the street from the waterfront Seagrove Park. A “modern ...

Luscious living high up in a downtown penthouse

Selling the view at Sapphire Tower

This week we visit the top floor of Sapphire Tower at 1262 Kettner Boulevard, San Diego’s 17th-tallest skyscraper at 32 stories and a height of 380 feet above street level, where penthouse suite 3802 occupies ...

Concepto's Essencia: essentially ill-conceived?

Doesn't anybody want to enjoy this piece of evolutionary, organic architecture?

Nestled into the side of Mt. Soledad about a half-mile from the coast in what listing materials describe as “the Hollywood Hills of La Jolla” sits the residence dubbed “Essencia.” With six bedrooms and seven ...

City board to SDG&E: Drop dead

Will city compete with utility?

Recommendations from an advisory board to San Diego's city council and Mayor Kevin Faulconer that a clean energy plan from San Diego Gas & Electric be rejected could clear the way for the city to ...

Reader contributor Adam Parfrey dies at 61

Wrote HELL.A. column and story behind Big Eyes movie for San Diegans

Adam Parfrey published a semiautobiographical novel by Joseph Goebbels, the ramblings of Charles Manson and Unabomber Ted Kaczynski plus analyses from the Aryan Nations of Don McLean's American Pie. Works he cultivated inspired Tim Burton's ...

Solar picks up after 2017 dip

Despite SDG&E move of peak window from day to evening

After a decline in new solar system installations in 2017, numbers are back on the rise in the first quarter of 2018, according to data released by industry data firm OhmHome. California, which accounts for ...

Oceanfront fraud

Ten years old but never been occupied

How about an opportunity to own a nearly-new oceanfront estate in south La Jolla for less than half the original asking price? The home at 5490 Calumet Avenue sits just two doors north of Calumet ...

C.W. Kim's Sundial House

Local architect's home is his "finest and most personal work of art."

From its perch on Mount Soledad above La Jolla Country Club, the Sundial House, as the estate at 7191 Encelia Drive is monikered, enjoys “brilliant design and panoramic views” of the San Diego coastline. The ...

Solana Beach nexus for border resistance

Catholic church meeting of responders

A little over three months after launching a volunteer-driven campaign to shield undocumented San Diegans from immigration action and assist those caught up in raids, the San Diego Rapid Response Network held its second official ...

Pot — savior of opioid users

San Diego doctors say marijuana is part of the answer

While Californians as a whole have shifted their marijuana consciousness in recent months to freshly-legalized recreational pot, a pair of local doctors are among those continuing to explore the plant's medicinal properties. On Wednesday evening ...

Rough road ahead for solar adopters

Bad news among the good

The Solar Energy Industries Association was in town last week, hosting an annual conference for more than 800 solar-related businesses. "The market has continued along going into this year — we may see a slowdown ...

Coveted in the Covenant

Six beds, 10 baths for $21 million in Rancho Santa Fe

This week we visit Buena Vista Farms, an estate set “on a raised plot of land” comprising more than 15 acres of coveted land within the Rancho Santa Fe Covenant. The property at 6025 El ...

Candidates square off for Alvarez's council seat

Split on future development, rent control, and maybe lead in paint

Ramping up campaigns for the June primary, three candidates to replace David Alvarez in the San Diego City Council's District 8 met before a packed house in Sherman Heights on Thursday night (March 15) in ...

Del Mar's "moving meditation"

Brazilian cherry wood floors, Calcutta marble, lava-stone steps, custom glass accordion stack doors

Listing materials bill the Del Mar estate at 507 Van Dyke Avenue as “a moving meditation.” Originally built in 1985, the four-bedroom, five-bath home underwent an extensive three-year renovation that was completed in 2017 that ...

Your new mansion has a disco with mirrored ceilings

“The Ultimate La Jolla Family Estate property”

Listing materials for the massive 14,000-square-foot estate at 2681 Idle Hour Lane, one of a small handful of cul-de-sacs tucked away west of the UC San Diego campus between the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and ...

Racial disparities alleged in aerospace hiring

Lawsuit aimed at General Atomics

Increased federal spending in the defense industry over the coming years could lead to a sizable production boost for San Diego's aerospace industry. But a group of activists organized by the local chapter of Al ...

There goes the affordable neighborhood

Bulldozers ready to obliterate Peñasquitos Village apartments

It took three years of planning, hours of contentious debate before the city council, and a last-minute deal with opposition forces that left some tenants feeling blindsided, but Lennar Homes ultimately got approval March 5 ...

Pot delivery services optimistic in Chula Vista

"We're kind of 'out of sight, out of mind."

After being rebuffed by San Diego's city council, marijuana delivery businesses seeking legitimacy may have found a savior to the south in Chula Vista. "Local permitting provides a path to a state license, which is ...

Seller is willing to accept Bitcoin

The value is in the land, 290 acres of it

“Welcome to Rancho Escondido Groves, your very own private 290.95-acre luxury mountain top estate.” So begins the sales pitch for the property at 1830 Rincon Avenue, in equal parts a development opportunity and potential paradise ...

Good intentions behind paving of Scripps Trail

"When it rains, we'll have chunks of asphalt that come loose."

More than a decade deep in a battle with San Diego city government to get their deteriorating road repaved, residents along the northern stretch of Scripps Trail seem no closer to getting answers than when ...

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