If you’re following my House Hunting Series, you’ll already know that in our quest to find and buy our dream house, the husband and I have begun looking about an hour or two outside of LA. We really, in our heart of hearts, don’t want to leave LA {A. we both grew up here B. our families are here C. we REALLY love our neighborhood}. But when you find far superior real estate listed for far less elsewhere, it’s hard not to at least consider our options, considering we both pretty much work from home and can live anywhere.
In our search to find an “affordable dream house”, the husband and I have looked at Palm Springs, ultimately vetoing it due to the horrendous heat, and now we’ve ruled out Lake Elsinore as well, due to the overwhelming negative comments we received on this post {even though the house is really cool}.
So next we venture 90 miles east of downtown Los Angeles to the dreamy resort town of Lake Arrowhead which has apparently been dubbed the “Jewel of Southern California”.
Even though we’d feel like city folk completely out of our element, the idea of four distinct seasons, especially a white snowy Christmas, has left us dreamy eyed, envisioning an idyllic storybook life. There seem to be plenty of restaurants, movie theaters, and entertainment, as well as unbelievably scenery and fun outdoorsy activities. Unfortunately though, there are no mail carriers that go directly to the homes there so we’d have to go pick up our mail at the local post office. A cute and fun little outing, sure, but if you knew how many packages were delivered to our house on a daily basis, this could be a con. A major worry and downside would be the fear of fires, of course, but I’m positive if there is mandatory fire insurance policies for living in the Hollywood Hills {there are} then there must be the same rules for this woodsy forest life.
What has really sold me though, of course, are the homes. Ranging from cute and quaint little cabins to beefed up beautiful palaces with a lake view, all within and mostly below our budget.
The closer you get to the lake the higher the prices get and the lakefront properties are over a million. And though I’m not quite sure of the other locations within Lake Arrowhead, it seems like there are handfuls of fabulous places under $400K that would suit our needs just as well.
The house shown here is one of my favorites… mostly because it has a warm Spanish feel {our favorite} and though it does seem a bit dark in the photos, the potential for redesign is limitless. I also do love some of the characteristics like the wood beams and the colorful tiles. This one is also a bit further from the lake with no lake view {which I kind of do want} but it’s on a private lane with a lot size of 42,570 Sq. Ft {which could also mean living with more mountain creatures we are NOT used to}… it’s listed at $399K {you can see the full listing here}
Obviously, and unlike Lake Elsinore, we’d have to take a little vacation like we did to Palm Springs to see if Lake Arrowhead is a viable option for us. {I love this house too!}
And of course my question to you, dear readers, what can you tell me about living in Lake Arrowhead?
