Amazing neighborhood. Amazing house. Amazing host.
It’s going to be hard to do justice to what a great experience we had with at Joel’s house.
For context we are a family of 4 (with a toddler and a baby), and we stayed at Joel’s house for 7 weeks having decided to live in San Diego for a bit rather being stuck in our small house in San Francisco.
Location is great -- on a cul-de-sac at the end of a quiet street overlooking a canyon. The neighborhood is very walkable with a great park nearby that has play structures as well as lots of grass areas. It’s a short 5 minute drive to twin shopping centers -- one with a big grocery store, drug store etc, and the other with lots of great dining options. More importantly, it is just 10 minutes from Del Mar beach -- arguably the best beach in San Diego.
The house itself is just perfect -- nice bright kitchen that is fully stocked with super high end appliances and equipment that looks out to the backyard and family room. We love the flow of the house -- very open, but at the same time some good nooks where you can quietly read a book and be away from the family chaos. Everything in the house is high end -- little things like ceramic knives and high end coffee maker to the master bedroom having Tempurpedic mattresses on an adjustable/massage frame, and a ceiling mounted home theatre TV setup with a 116 inch screen and a Dolby Atmos 11 speaker surround system! The backyard overlooking a canyon is a delight -- plenty of grass for the little ones to play frisbee and run around -- and good for grownups too, with a gazebo with outdoor dining, and a nice grill. Oh -- and 4 fig trees that produce the most delicious figs you’ve ever had in your life. Each evening after dinner we would go out there and pick the 4 or 5 that had ripened over the day.
So what more could make this even better? The most amazing host in the world. 2 days before we arrived he told us that he had a the water filtering system in the kitchen replaced, as he explained “it was working fine, but since you mentioned you had a baby that was drinking formula, I wanted to make sure you had the best water possible.” When we arrived he gave us a tour of the house, pointing out the kitchen well stocked with food (including brand-new spices), brand new boogie boards, bikes for us to use, extra tanks of propane he’d gotten (“since you are staying for so long I wanted to make sure you would not run out’). He even left a giant welcome box of chocolates for us to enjoy.
So everything is going great… but then the fridge has a problem, not keeping the food cold. We call Joel. I swear he had repair guys there before we were off the phone with him… and this was on a Sunday no less! They fixed it, and it seemed to be going well for a few days, but then it started having problems. We texted Joel… his response was “well, you should not have to deal with this” -- and he ordered a brand new sub-zero frige that got installed the next day. I think you see a hosts true colors when there is a problem, and how they deal with it. We were blown away by how responsive and proactive he was.
I cannot say enough about what a wonderful experience this was. Don’t pass up an opportunity to stay at this home!