Dear Lucille Fisher:

Most likely, few reading this column will have had the pleasure of knowing you, though after they learn a little more about you, will surely feel they missed something.

When one arrives at your three-bedroom, two-bath home in Seaside, high on a hill where the sun is so pleasing, the evidence of your great love-of-living is flowing and irrefutable. Your respect for your home and the caring you gave it are clear in each area, starting right in the front yard.

Your house is compelling even from the curb. The lawn is splendid, with a majestic palm that corners against the sturdy white wall that helps keep your garden a secret, a garden only hinted at from the street courtesy of the bushy top of that beautiful oak tree sheltering flowering plants for so long now.

As one meanders through the garden toward the front door, a quick glance at the interior of that perfect, original garage—with redwood rafters nobody can even get anymore—is almost a stopper. Imagine a garage intriguing enough to make a person decide to explore it completely on the way out.

Mrs. Fisher, your foyer is wonderful. It’s not only the raised bed of thriving plants you’ve grown in the center of the space with two wide walkways on either side. It’s also the way the skylight high above provides a clear, easy brightness to wash the opposing walls and give the green of the leaves a depth of hue usually associated with exotic, fecund places. Such an uncluttered, peaceful entry to your home tells guests that breathing easy here is a sure thing.

The house has views to the Monterey curve of the bay feathered through handsome old pine and Cypress trees on other properties, views seen from your master bedroom, kitchen, living room and courtyard. With your aesthetic sense, you must have enjoyed seeing streets crisscrossing different neighborhoods of various pastels down the hill start to turn into lanes of twinkling lights after dark.

It’s easy to believe you loved gathering people for meals. Your dining room seems to still know its importance in the family. It appears you loved cooking as well, because your kitchen is so perfectly kept and, as it fills with brilliant sunshine, it seems your own light is there too.

Perhaps the living room speaks best to your love-of-living, Mrs. Fisher. The room is admittedly very big, so you arranged it just right to have cozy corners for reading from your collection of books with titles indicating your great interest in ideas. The rest is a gracious open space that can hold many and offer them seating with several views.

How about that fireplace! Most people won’t ever have seen one stunningly placed in the middle of an area with a circular hearth that could be a round table-top. With wrought iron legs supporting it, people can sit right on it, or in comfy side chairs nearby. The smoke rises through a dramatically designed inverted funnel that vanishes into the ceiling. What a great pleasure on cold nights with friends and family.

It’s said there were no heirs at the close of your life and it comes as no surprise to learn that treasured friends were remembered in your will. Consideration for others and respectful tending is apparent throughout your house.

Mrs. Fisher, thank you for contributing to the best of Seaside with your long, attentive residency on La Salle Avenue.

Price: $715,000. 1694 La Salle Ave., Seaside. Contact Wylie Barnett, Keller Williams Realty, 622-6249.