195 Cedar Street

From the street, the stone chimney rises through the roofline with the kind of conviction that only comes from history. The house itself, a 1910 cottage painted the faded gray-white of a marine layer, is showing its age. The fence needs work. The landscaping is thin. But the bones are there, and in Pacific Grove, bones like these are worth paying attention to. Inside, the living room stops you. White plaster walls with a hand-finished texture, dark wood beams crossing a ceiling higher than the modest exterior suggests, and a floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace built from rough-cut blocks with an arched firebox at its base. The hardwood floors are worn in the way that comes from a century of actual use - not distressed on purpose, just honest. An arched doorway leads toward the bedrooms, the kind of architectural detail worth noticing. What you're buying is a 1,229 square foot, three-bedroom two bath cottage with a fenced yard, a detached two-car garage that rivals a small barn, and a living room that most renovated houses in this area would trade their quartz countertops for. The structure has something that's genuinely hard to manufacture. The rest is up to you. And there's the location - close to town, the local golf course, and the sandy beaches at Lover's Point.