>>REALESTATE

Rich and Nancy Trissel want their own land in Big Sur. They decided some time ago that the best way to finance the purchase would be through real estate, and after three prior homes, came to the Peninsula hoping to find one more. “Rich is an engineer and I’m a physicist so we’re very thorough people,” Trissel laughs. “We were determined to be careful and buy without stressing. No stress.” Perhaps they could write a book on how to do that since they succeeded in masterful fashion.

Trissel says they looked at a lot of properties with the help of their Realtor, Carol Duncan. “Carol had one last house for us,” she says. She took them down Pescadero Road, along the Del Monte Forest Preserve. After the long search, the house they’d finally found was like Cinderella’s glass slipper—a perfect fit.

It was originally built in 1965. The longtime prior owners remodeled the kitchen-great room, and built another stunning room (770 square feet) above the double garage. It features a gracefully shaped ceiling that peaks at more than twenty feet, a dozen windows scaled and beautifully placed, plus a half-bath, deep utility sink and paned French doors leading to a long wrap-around balcony over the preserve. The place is ideal for Nancy Trissel’s talent with yarns and fabric, although her large looms, rolling flat tables and wall cabinets could be doll furniture in comparison.

“I love it, but the kitchen sold me,” says Trissel, a devoted cook. And it is superb, with hardwood floors, a professional Thermador range, Sub Zero fridge, a center island with storage and seating, an absolute gala of cabinetry, working surfaces, windows and two deeply recessed sky lights. “We added those,” Trissel says, “for natural light all day.”

The equally sized dining room features a concave re-covered brick fireplace. French doors opens to the foyer, and another set open to the garden deck, considerably larger than the interior. Trissel says, “We spend most of our time with friends enjoying the fireplace and the preserve against our fence.” The hardwood floors and wood-framed doors and windows are found throughout the house.

On first sight, Rich immediately envisioned the remodel for a timbered exterior entry, foyer, living room, two full baths and three bedrooms. The Trissels drew a layout and an architect refined it. Along the way their contractor, Doug Starr, offered his own ideas, such as thickening the width of the walls on the wide arch from foyer to living room to preserve the balance in the house, and the Carmel-stone fireplace in the living room where a bank of windows and French doors open to the deck.

The back of the house was taken to the studs and massive reordering of rooms began. Two once-adjacent full baths were separated, one to the front off the foyer, the other with the master suite.

The 660-square-foot basement remains unfinished. A back hallway has been widened to create a laundry room.

Rich’s office and one guest room adjoin the master, where solid walls against the preserve were replaced with banks of windows and doors to the deck. The master bath is brilliant, with an elevated tub encased by windows on three sides, a glass shower stall and fine choices of fixtures—all understated beauties.

Trissel says, “We like this house so much that we hope to replicate it in Big Sur.”  

Price: $1,825,000. 24652 Pescadero, Carmel. Carol Duncan, Crandall Preferred Properties, 277-3026.