Never Sold Mid-Century California Home Listings for $8.8 Million
Overlooking Moonlight Beach in Encinitas, California for the first time in 60 years, this custom-built home will come to the market for a new generation of owners.
The compact site is uniquely situated on an artificial cliff and has been owned by the same family since it was built in 1963.
The $8.8 million listing, which The Post can exclusively report will list earlier this week, is held by Josh Altman, Matt Altman and Jason Saks of Douglas Elliman.
The property is currently divided into two apartments and consists of a main house with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen and a laundry room – and on the upper level a guest unit with a bedroom, its own separate kitchen, living room and bathroom.
Outdoor spaces include a private staircase down to the beach and, above, a lush landscaped oasis with a five-hole putting green and three fire pits.
“I came here every summer,” current owner Ken Palmer told the Post, growing up in the Southern California seaside retreat his grandfather built six decades ago with the help of an award-winning architect.
Palmer, now 69, began helping renovate the place when he was 10, and as an adult, after his grandmother died, he came by every other weekend to look after his grandfather — and whenever there was a USC game.
In 2010, after his grandfather’s death, he and his wife Wendy moved in full-time and have spent the years since enjoying seaside vacations.
The interior, Palmer said, “looks exactly as it did when we built it,” including details made from ash pecan, a material no longer available for purchase due to conservation laws.
In fact, the entire Pacific Coast property could not be built today because zoning restrictions now require homes to be located 40 feet from the edge of the natural bluff. But the cliff below 430 Moonlight Lane was dug up long ago and a huge wall was built in its place.
The house that sits on top of the wall is therefore about 40 feet in front of the cliff, or 80 feet behind where any new building can go today, he explains.
Palmer is putting it on the market for the first time in its history now that he doesn’t surf much anymore – and finds the area has become too populated and touristy for him to find peace in his retirement.
