Floating celebrity
Comic-con yacht with Jumbotron
Mike Madriaga 4 p.m., July 18
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Stories by Dave Rice
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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 ...
Hamptons style in La Jolla
"Guests will be marveled"
You’ll find the newly constructed estate home at 921 Muirlands Drive in La Jolla “beautifully perched atop one of La Jolla’s preeminent view streets” and less than a mile from the coast. The 8612-square-foot “Hamptons ...
Cannabis for critters
"When an animal is stressed out from fireworks, it helps."
Adult marijuana use restrictions across the state were loosened this month, but one company launched in San Diego this week is offering cannabis products targeted toward animals. Phyto Animal Health, a subsidiary of Medical Marijuana ...
Near-doubling of Bahia Resort approved
Increase of 285 rooms puts squeeze on local watercraft users
Mission Bay water-sport enthusiasts fighting a hotel expansion they say would eliminate public access to a prime vessel-launch site were dealt another blow from the San Diego Park and Recreation Board on Thursday (January 18). ...
An eight-million dollar view on Lookout Drive
Construction money built this one
The newly constructed estate at 7750 Lookout Drive sits at the northern foot of La Jolla’s Mt. Soledad, privately tucked into the hillside yet still affording ocean views toward La Jolla Shores. “Enter this elegantly ...
Burglary victim leads cops to crooks
“I was kind of dragging the police along behind me.”
Computer theft tracked to Mission Valley hovel.
Highest asking price for attached housing in San Diego County
A smart home on Del Mar’s sand
Listing materials for a pair of Del Mar condos at 1750 Ocean Front promise prospective buyers a “Once in a lifetime opportunity for this stunning architectural masterpiece” on the sand just north of Powerhouse Park. ...
State utilities commission holiday sneak
Tack on two years to community-choice energy rollout?
Proponents of community-choice energy programs are rallying opposition to a proposal from the California Public Utilities Commission that they say would kill or seriously hamper efforts to expand community-choice programs throughout the state. Community choice ...
Rapid Response Network to fight la migra
"The first part is our hotline, where we have someone available 24/7."
After nearly ten months in the planning stages and contributions from more than 40 faith and community groups, Tuesday (December 19) saw the launch of the San Diego Rapid Response Network, a system designed to ...
Come up with $8 mil and change, and the second floor is yours
Numerous attempts over the course of a decade have yet to snare a buyer
Marketing copy for the three-bedroom condo at 202 Coast Boulevard (#3) says this “spectacular oceanfront property is ready for you.” Situated on a single level (the building’s second floor), the unit features direct elevator access ...
Local human rights groups fight each other
National Action Network vs. Peace Resource Center of San Diego
Two activist groups in San Diego that ostensibly hold similar views have found themselves at odds over what one charges is the other's racially motivated refusal to seat people of color on its board of ...
270 degrees of unobstructed views with no neighbor in sight
Balinese contemporary, next to the Del Mar fairgrounds
“Welcome to the ‘King of the Hill,’” beckons the listing pitch for 5160 Rancho Del Mar Trail, a five-bedroom, six-and-a-half-bath home boasting more than 9500 square feet of living space situated “within the prestigious, private ...
King tide bird count on Mission Bay
Kendall-Frost Marsh's light-footed Ridgway's rails on the ropes
Volunteers with San Diego Audubon used exceptionally high tides Tuesday morning (December 5) as an aid in counting threatened light-footed Ridgway's rails that reside in Kendall-Frost Marsh along the northeast shores of Mission Bay. "We ...
Go solar, get screwed by SDG&E starting today
But new rate structure's end result could mean less reliance on power co.
Solar power system owners connecting to the grid for the first time are in for a shock as power bills begin arriving, as are existing customers who failed to lock in a temporary reprieve. Effective ...
Protest at alleged slumlord's house in Point Loma
And a "Walk of shame" tour of short-term rentals in O.B.
Thanksgiving weekend found plenty of San Diegans less than thankful for housing conditions in their communities. Saturday (November 25th) saw Ocean Beach play host to a short-term vacation rental "walk of shame" sponsored by the ...
How about Coronado’s “Zee Huis”?
Dutch for “sea house with eight bedrooms and eleven bathrooms”
A trend of endowing mansions with fanciful and often foreign names seems to be emerging among San Diego’s mega-rich. Many may be familiar with La Jolla’s Foxhill estate, former home of the local publishing magnate ...
Protesters defy food-sharing ban in El Cajon
"If hep A was as big a concern as they're saying it is, they'd have bathrooms."
An act of civil disobedience ended peacefully on Sunday afternoon (November 19th), as dozens from across the county gathered at Wells Park in El Cajon to offer food to the homeless in defiance of a ...
Community Choice Energy clears hurdle in San Diego
Sempra/SDG&E will still make money, just not as much
San Diego on Thursday (November 16th) took another step in the lengthy process of establishing a community choice aggregation market for city residents and businesses, as the city's Sustainable Energy Advisory Board voted to send ...
Drones with frickin' lasers
They could be used for humanitarian missions, too
San Diego–based General Atomics, makers of the military's Predator and Reaper drones (“unmanned aerial vehicles,” as the industry prefers to call them), has landed a contract to begin experiments equipping the bombing and surveillance aircraft ...
Solar vision of a refugee
Mohamed Hauter's transition from Yemen teen to green-energy guy
Hauter grew up with his family in Yemen while his father, a U.S. citizen, spent six months of the year working in the States, first as a farmer in California's Central Valley and later as ...
Rent-control battle cry in Escondido
"We were supposed to have a meeting, but they locked up the tennis courts."
For years the Eagles Point apartment complex, a collection of suburban four-story buildings comprising 519 units along East Grand Avenue in eastern Escondido, has drawn harsh criticism from residents and neighbors. Negative reviews, some dating ...
See the Del Mar racetrack from the comfort of your home
Previous owner identified cells responsible for the five basic taste perceptions
Listing materials for the hillside estate at 2116 Balboa Avenue in Del Mar invite prospective buyers to “enjoy spectacular whitewater ocean, sunset & Del Mar racetrack views from this extraordinary seaside Villa in Olde Del ...
Air Force drone fleet due for upgrade
General Atomics may use old ones for target practice
The U.S. military's fleet of Predator and Reaper drones, produced locally by San Diego's General Atomics, is preparing to enter their third decade of service. According to a new report, they're also due for some ...
Owned by philanthropists and racehorse owners
This one used to have the highest asking price in San Diego County
“Del Dios Ranch presents an outstanding opportunity to acquire one of the most expansive tracts in coveted Rancho Santa Fe,” listing materials boast of the sprawling 61-acre estate. Beds: 4 Baths: 9 Current Owner: Sahm ...
Tiny homes for the homeless and your backyard
Councilman backs plan to house "the next one million in San Diego."
Alternately referred to under terms such as "companion units," "accessory dwellings,” or, more colloquially, "granny flats" (Coronado prefers the unique term "carriage houses"), the practice of adding a second residence to a single-family lot has ...
