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>>REAL ESTATE

Barbara Higuera has lived in her house over 16 years. It’s a house that was great when built in 1953 and, instead of being resistant to time, has been complicit with it, today standing fully in the present. It sits on a corner lot, yet is only seen from the small street its address declares, a genuinely lovely bungalow-style home with very protected grounds.

“I think of all the good this house has seen,” Higuera says, “I brought up my children here and took care of my grandchild for several years after that, really enjoying living here.” If walls have ears, this house would be beaming.

From the street, it’s a handsome place with bright green lawn (automatic sprinklers front and back) surrounded by a white picket fence tailored in keeping with the demure quality of the property. The house is painted a pale aqua-beige, the glass front door frame and the shutters an inviting navy blue. The brand new peaked roof provides extended eves over an L-shaped veranda. Big windows (dual pane throughout), when seen from the gate, give the immediate sense of a bright airy interior.

That’s certainly confirmed upon entering the living room, where the windows suddenly seem bigger on the inside than they do on the outside, nearly reaching the ceiling and the floor. At one end of the room is a brick fireplace/wood-burning stove that can be opened wide for full enjoyment of a flickering fire. An articulated archway noticed from even the front door indicates a naturally bright room. Following the light, so to speak, one discovers that the kitchen is full of windows in three directions: two over the sinks, a big one along the side plus a glass door across the room at the end of a broad hallway that sends light strolling confidently in to lounge around the floor (the hallway has the washer and dryer and great cabinets yet they all only manage to fill half the space).

This kitchen could easily accommodate a table for six without losing ground. The counters run the complete width of the room, with sinks in the center. The four-burner gas stove and fridge sit to one side and the rest is all open floor space. All the cabinets, of which there are many above and below, are original, including the grooved chrome handles. Their authenticity is part of the overall satisfaction felt in the kitchen, where many surely arrive and stay during parties.

A short hallway behind the living room opens to one of the two bedrooms with a window to the completely private side yard. The full house bath is wonderful, with great ambiance, ample space and a mighty storage closet. Next is the master with its peek of the bay, comfy size and big window. New lighted fans turn lazily in the ceilings of both bedrooms.

Perhaps the niftiest surprise of them all is the sophisticated backyard. A wide slatted wood fence surrounds it entirely with a luscious growth of leafy trees and flowering bushes weaving over the top and completely obscuring it. A freestanding wood deck with railings is surrounded by brilliant green lawn and is often set aglow by superb sunsets. “I was showing someone the backyard recently and it suddenly struck me that I really wasn’t going to live here anymore,” Higuera says. “It came as a sort of shock.” She and her man want to share a house they’ve found off of Highway 68.

“I’m a motivated seller, I guess,” she laughs. 

Price: $579,000. 1198 Harcourt Ave., Seaside. Contact Susan Culcasi, Keller Williams Realty, 596-3698.