1509 Via Montemar: A Breathless Palos Verdes Beauty

These days, with our entire lives on display, privacy has become the new luxury. Within this increasingly intrusive and inquisitive world, home has become our safe haven and, as we learned over the last year and a half, our whole world. But where, we wonder, will we ever find a home that feels like a true sanctuary?

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Matchless Views of the Ocean Brings the Soothing Notes of Escape to 1509 Via Montemar, Palos Verdes Estates

It would need to be surrounded by a landscape that conjures up the beauty of the legendary countrysides that make up our dream destinations. Designed for comfort and tailored for pleasure, it would include a plethora of amenities, from spa bathrooms to gracious living spaces to a resort-style pool. Impeccable details like graceful arches, stone pathways, filigreed balconies, mosaic tiles, and beamed ceilings, would transform it from a place to live to a place to experience.

Set in one of the country’s preeminent districts, plush with parks, its peaceful setting would only be matched by the tranquility of the home itself. Architectural firm Ashai Design brought that vision to life when they created 1509 Via Montemar, Palos Verdes Estates. 

Perched high above Bluff Cove in Palos Verdes Estates, with a masterplan designed by the legendary landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., the landscape architect behind many of the country’s most visually astounding national parks and monumental public spaces, this beautifully designed and maintained Palos Verdes Peninsula community is one of the country’s exclusive enclaves and the backdrop to this astounding estate.

The impeccably manicured exterior hints at the understated luxury inside. A mature palm and lush trees play peekaboo with a home sheathed in soothing sandstone and topped by a red roof, a nod to the neighborhood’s roots in the classic Spanish Revival styles that found their greatest expression just after the turn of the last century. Leave your car in one of the garage’s three spaces along with the cares of the day as you step through the gated entry into the tiled courtyard and into the home’s upper level.

“It’s pretty rare for my jaw to drop when I walk into a home and even more rare for it to stay dropped,” says realtor Ed Kaminsky of the Kaminsky Real Estate Group at eXp Realty.

“But as soon as I saw that one hundred eighty degree view, which sweeps from the Palos Verdes Bluffs to the Queen’s Necklace, I was honestly speechless.”

A wide terrace that runs along the upper level offers a place to enjoy it throughout the day, from a morning latte as the sun sprinkles its light over the water in a soothing waltz that crests to perfect waves that beckon surfers from up and down the coast, to cocktails sipped at sunset when it winks its last flirtatious glance of pinks and oranges before disappearing into the night.

Generous multi-paned windows invite this mesmerizing vision inside to accompany you throughout the day. Whether you’re cooking dinner in the sleek, European-influenced kitchen with friends and family perched at the island while they enjoy the rhythm of chop and sizzle, delighting over the results over dinner in the dining area or lounging in the living room, a fire crackling away as the night winds down, it’s a vista that never gets old. 

You’re astounded that, despite witnessing it each day, that shifting spectacle of sea and sky never fails to mesmerize you. It gently shakes you awake each morning as it streams into your bedroom, a generous suite elevated by a grand stone fireplace, a vaulted exposed beamed ceiling, and a generous walk-in closet.

While you’ve never formally taken up meditation, you have your own version of this time-honored practice; each morning you breathe in the salt-tinged air from the room’s Juliet balcony and give thanks for another beautiful day before stepping into the generous bathroom’s glass walk-in shower.

It accompanies you to the pool, where your day vibrates between working on your laptop on the beautifully arched and shaded loggia and laps in a pool and spa that more than rivals any you’ve ever experienced at a luxury hotel. Here is the privacy and peace those getaways promise but rarely deliver.

At cocktail hour, fruit from your own trees flavor your aperitifs. On a chilly evening, you’ll enjoy sip them on the outdoor terrace, warmed by the flames crackling in its fireplace. Ending the night with a bubble bath in the standalone tub, the memory of another perfect day playing in your head and wine plucked from your showcase wine cellar at hand defines bliss. 

Now you understand what the homeowner meant when she shared that “coming home to this house feels like exhaling after holding your breath all day. Once you’re here, nothing else seems to exist except the sun, the sky, and the sea. I think my favorite part of the home is the fact that you can watch the sun set over the ocean from virtually every room. It never gets old, and takes my breath away every day.”

You couldn’t agree more. This home leaves you breathless.

Ed Kaminsky | 310.307.2224 | DRE #00958114
Kaminsky Real Estate Group
eXp Realty | itzsold.com

List Price: $4,850,000

Photography by Chris Saldivar

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