The word “character” comes up frequently enough in discussions about real estate, typically when the subject is a house wearing its story on its sleeve, so to speak. A house with character can mean many things to many people, including that the place is being sold “as is,” which may indicate a really excellent opportunity despite how the label sounds in other retail venues. And truth be told, the character found in the Ciesla home is a good bit of “as is,” although trumped entirely by Ted Ciesla himself, raconteur on stage and off. As characters go, the man’s the genuine article.

Ciesla says, “I’m selling after all this time because I’ve recently been cured of prostate cancer and have decided to travel the continent all the way to Newfoundland and back.”  (In his little red Porsche and any one of his pure-color wool berets.) “My daughters, I call them my String of Pearls because they’re strung up the coast from Aptos to Los Altos Hills, will always be my reason for coming back.” Today, his beret is deep purple.

Ciesla’s house in the Highlands, in a rare flatland area known as Yankee Point, was built in the ‘60s out of redwood—handsome, thick slabs no longer available—and it still retains much of the feeling of ‘60s houses on the Central Coast. “It was a lot smaller when we bought it in ‘73” Ciesla says. “It needed a ton of work and I knew Fran and I didn’t have the money to remodel it. [Ciesla’s still much grieved for his wife who passed away in 1988]. But Fran shrugged and said, ‘Oh I’ll just do it.’” And she did.  

They improved the great room that has three enormous windows offering 20 feet of glass and an unimpeded view of the ocean 600 feet away, below the cliff and on to the horizon. They borrowed bookcases that had gone under the windows in another room and put them in the foyer they added, such a charming introduction to the house as one steps inside. Currently, it’s Ciesla’s library.

The half-acre is currently blessed with mature cypress and madrone trees, several inverted hulls of the boats Ciesla so enjoys, plus the bow anchor from a gold-rush era clipper ship. The towering and dignified behemoth, rusted in deep layers, is ensconced in the front yard. At one end of his property on the corner of Yankee Point Dr. and Highway 1 stands the aft anchor surrounded by the wharf pilings Ciesla found with it, each encrusted with groups of barnacles the size of wedding bouquets.

Inside, four bedrooms and three baths (counting the attached studio with small kitchen) are set behind the great room and separated by a high redwood wall (all interior redwood is whitewashed), the back of which has a seven-foot double door, and deep cabinets six feet tall and seamlessly installed. The amount of storage in this house is to beg for. Fran even made a sewing room in the attic with huge drawers. Then there’s the kitchen, proudly offering 18 drawers of its own. There’s even storage outside in the fenced area used as a workshop over the years.

New buyers could live very comfortably in the Ciesla home as it stands. Granted, the bathrooms and kitchen are dated, but the place is solid. Best of all, the new people would become owners of the elegantly Zen-like, beautifully conceived and polished granite fountain made for Ciesla by renowned local sculptor Gordon Newall. What an enviable and magnificent deal that is.  

Price: $1,750,000. 120 Yankee Point Dr., Carmel Highlands • Contact Ted Ciesla, owner, 624-0102.