The house is clearly old, and is full of interesting art and other objects. There are lots of nooks and crannies outdoors along with lovely plants and various little fountains with runny water. I suspect I didn't even go everywhere I could have gone behind the house. I never saw any of the more deluxe bedrooms, but would not consider it a high-end place based on the parts I used. It worked quite well for me, and I will certainly consider it again when I'm coming back to San Diego.
It truly is right downtown and extremely close to the airport, as well as directly under the flight path. The planes are incredibly loud and all the sound-proofing in the world probably couldn't negate that, but there are pairs of new earplugs all around the house and there were not many planes going over during my two nights when I was trying to sleep. I really did sleep fine without earplugs and without being awakened much at all.
I slept in the "budget budget budget" loft room, which was fine for me once Michael provided a big box fan my first night when the day had been unusually hot and the AC just couldn't keep up. The room did cool down and I slept well, and the next day was so much cooler that I never needed the fan at all. Indeed the stairs to the loft are steep and narrow, but I had no problem with them though I did need to turn carefully to close the door when I left the room.
The house is obviously both a labor of love and a work in progress. Michael told me about his plans to improve the loft, which do sound lovely.
I had pretty minimal interactions with other guests, and never figured out how many of the rooms were even in use. But I had a wonderful very wide-ranging conversation with Michael while we sat out on the front porch together.