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A house for sale in Monterey has the abiding love of its owner, who really would prefer to remain both anonymous and in place, but who is forced to relocate. Heartfelt emotions color every word the owner speaks about the place. “When I first saw the huge back deck and garden from the foyer I said, ‘Oh I love this house.’ ”

“I call it a ‘lifestyle house,’ ” the owner continues. “It’s so perfect for anyone with children, lots of visitors and entertaining but it’s just as right for someone wanting quiet and indoor-outdoor tranquility.”

Serenity is capital in this property, which sits in a neighborhood contiguous with the coveted Peter’s Gate section of Old Monterey, and seems like its fraternal twin. The streets in both have large properties, venerable trees, high stone walls and beautifully kept older homes seen by passers-by only in glimpses.

Visual, olfactory and tactile senses come alive on the Martin Street property, within a hologram of fecund greenery everywhere: pines, oaks and two magnificent cedars, their softly-feathered rust-colored trunks glowing in the sunshine as they have for over half a century.

“Most of my neighbors are still original owners. I love that permanence you can actually feel here.” Local architect Chet Maderak designed the house in the early ‘60s.

The house displays the enduring attributes of quality construction and materials designed in the classic, clean lines of Mr. Maderak’s timeless architecture. For example, one enters on a dusky-black slate floor in the foyer (with a large, rare, coat closet) that extends to the nexus of three areas of the house: the three bedrooms/two baths (Toto toilets, dual pane windows) on the right, the kitchen (Armstrong floating tile floor) to the left, and the living room directly ahead. (Immense closets throughout this house are the secret to such a clean interior design.) The living room floors are gleaming oak (dining room and all bedrooms too), part of the integrated upgrades this owner has accomplished in the 1,525-square-foot house on 6,900 square feet of land.

The living room and dining room ceilings are timbered, vaulted and white-washed, allowing mellow refraction from the floor-to-ceiling windows that face the more than 1,200 square feet of the garden-level deck. The living room flows to the dining room where the big windows on both sides include a slider to the deck on one side, and a half-glass door to the side yard on the other. A table for 10 is perfect in the center. A handsomely-crafted, room-dividing solid wall is angled along the vaulted ceilings. This wall separates the two rooms while it encloses the chimneys for the living room fireplace (slate hearth) and the corner fireplace in the kitchen.

Among other sensible and beautiful upgrades, the kitchen has birch cabinets, stainless appliances (five-burner stove switched to gas) and small travertine marble backsplashes all around. The faucet fixture by Hans Grohe is a modern and highly functional work of art. The kitchen door opens into a 484-square-foot knockout garage with more space than some gyms and more built-ins than a country schoolhouse, along with a washer and dryer, utility sink, large opposing windows and door to the gardens.

The master contains the best surprise. From the window, through 10 silver-barked oaks with lichen collages which look like pale, lacey tattoos on bared limbs, there’s enough glimmer of the bay visible for that heart- and mind-alteration that the sight of water always makes. 

Price: $999,000 780 Martin St., Monterey. Contact realtor, Christine Monteith, Broker Associate or The Jones Group Coast and Country Real Estate, 236-7780.