Heads Up Curtis Park, We're Looking At You:

Heads Up Curtis Park, We're Looking At You:

Our House on Portola 

It was 1997. In '97 Bill Clinton was starting his second term as President. The Dow Jones climbed over 7000 for the first time. It was the year of the 1^st Harry Potter book (The Philosopher's Stone). It was also the year Princess Diana died in a car accident. Movie of the year? - Titanic.

I was now working for the State of California in the Department of Corrections (CDCR) and our project had recently relocated to the old Aerojet complex out in Rancho Cordova. That year Kris and I accepted that children were not going to be in our future. While we liked our house in Rocklin, we never felt that we quite fit in there. We were always going down to Sacramento so we decided to get the heck out of Rocklin and Placer County. We began to look at homes in Sacramento proper. We liked midtown and so initially looked for a place there. Each time we found a house we liked it had hardly any yard for our dog and when we found a house with some yard for the dog we didn't like the house. Soon we expanded our search to East Sac and McKinley Park. We found a house on C Street in McKinley Park that we liked. While we were looking at it, Kris noticed that the house next door was playing music rather loudly and was a little concerned. The people who were living in (renting) the house returned while we were still there. We asked them about the neighbors playing the music. They told us that they were good neighbors and were not a problem but they seemed to imply that the house on the other side was a problem. We asked for more information. They were a bit reluctant to say too much but did volunteer that it got better once they got a dog. (What does that mean?) It didn't sound very good, so we ruled that house out. We expanded our search into Land Park. We found a house or two we kinda liked there but they were a bit further from downtown than we wanted so we continued to look. Kris had a friend who lived in Curtis Park and Kris suggested we start looking there after all it was right next to Land Park and close to downtown. It was a smaller and a bit more eclectic neighborhood which appealed to us. The more we looked the more we liked the area. We first found a house on Marshall that we both liked. After the McKinley Park C Street experience we now included checking out the neighbors along with viewing the house. We started knocking on doors. The woman in the house next-door told us the house behind us was a problem. The woman said they were militia type people, whatever that meant. Yikes! Kris's mom knew someone who knew the supposed “militia people”. He said he was under the impression that it was the woman next-door who was the real problem. We met with the supposed “militia people”. They were very nice but they did tell us about some of the problems they had with the woman we had talked to. In fact, they had to get a restraining order against her. It turned out that they were not the only ones who had to get one. It was too bad because we really liked the house but we moved on and continued our search.

We took a week off but then I found a house listed on the internet on Portola Way that looked interesting. I asked our Realtor, Janet, to show us it. She said she couldn't find the listing so she pulled all the listings on Portola Way or close to it. We were hoping to find a craftsman style house. The first one we looked at was sort of a craftsman style but it had modifications that looked like what you'd see in a tract home form the 70's, There was another one down the same block. It was a craftsman style house but a bit smaller than we wanted and the backyard was small as well. The third house was not a craftsman but it still was an older home. It was also over our preferred price range but it was priced right at the top end of the amount we had been pre-approved for. I like looking at homes so I asked Janet to show us anyway. We loved the house. It was the right size and it had a great landscaped backyard with a large deck and a built in hot tub. It had been updated with central heat and air, separate units for upstairs and downstairs. The Kitchen, although not large had been remodeled. It had a quarter basement with a wine cellar! There was really no work that we would need to do. Buying an older home I was figuring we were going to have to spend some money to make some changes to whatever we bought. This house already had all the needed changes done.

That weekend I tried to look at every house on the market in Curtis Park. Every house I looked at was not nearly as nice as the house we had viewed on Portola Way. Well, there was one house that was nicer but it was also larger and was listed for more than 100K above the Portola Way house. We returned to Portola Way and walked the street, knocked on doors and talked with a number of neighbors. They all seemed nice. They were positive and encouraging. The one who was a little less than that was Judy who lived in the house next-door. Judy warned us about the pending development of the railyard that was behind the house. The feeling I got was she thought maybe we would not fit in with the neighborhood. I assumed it was because of where we were currently living. I wasn't sure what to make of it but I didn't feel that there would be a problem plus the others on the block spoke well of her.

The market was in a bit of a down cycle. The Portola Way house had been on the market for over 100 days. We put in a offer at 20K under asking. They countered at 10K under. We considered countering splitting the difference. We really liked the house and decided we didn't want to risk losing the house over just a few thousand dollars and so we accepted the offer and like that, we were under contract. We did a 30 day escrow. It all happened so fast that we were not prepared to put our Rocklin house on the market. Luckily we had been pre-approved based on not selling the Rocklin house. We had intended to sell but we started to entertain maybe renting it instead. Our friends in Rocklin knew of someone who was looking to rent a house. We ended up renting to them. They would go on to rent our Rocklin house for the next 20 years and only after they moved out did we sell it.

We moved into our new house in Curtis Park on Labor Day Weekend. Our new neighbor, Judy, threw us a welcome brunch the next day with all our new neighbors. We got to meet everyone all at once. I suppose they all came out to see who the heck were these “alien” Placer County people moving on to their block. (As you probably know the politics of Place County residents and Curtis Park residents don't exactly match up... )

Portola house from the Backyard

OK, we might not have kids but we now had a great house in a great neighborhood right off midtown. That was almost 28 years ago. Many of the neighbors have been replaced over the years but the neighborhood vibe is still pretty much the same only where we used to be some of the more younger people on the block, we have now joined the other team. We continue to love living on Curtis Park. Our house is turning 100 years old this year. It's true I'm not so young anymore but at least I am younger than most of the houses in the neighborhood if not the residents....