In the fall of 2020, as we get ready to leave our first family home, we have so many wonderful memories of 235 Tamalpais. Throughout the year, even in Winter, we'll remember the California light. For six years, we lived in San Francisco, where the January sky was as gray as a blacksmith’s anvil. In Marin, by contrast, it's luminous; every New Year’s Day, we went to Stinson Beach for my wife’s birthday and the January sunshine was like a promise for the year ahead. In winter the Marin hills are green and the waterfalls lively. The hiking around Alpine Lake—and the climb through the woods to the top of Rocky Ridge and the 360-degree view of Marin—is the best you’ll get all year.

We’ll remember the hummingbirds in Spring flitting through the bay trees, the puddle walks after night-time rain, and the turkey vultures circling in the morning thermals over the valley. In the early morning, from the kitchen, you can sometimes see the sun glinting off the water of Richardson Bay through the trees out toward San Rafael.

In Summer, we’ll miss the afternoon cool of the lowest level of our house, dinners on the deck in the evening shade as the sun set pink on Oak Ridge opposite, then the hum of cicadas at night. On weekend evenings, we used to camp out on the ballfield for family movies, while in June, the sound of Fairfax Festival bands filtered up through the redwoods below.

As the September nights close in for Fall, there’s a feeling of comfort in 235 Tamalpais. The fireplace and the lights in the main room are cosy and at night, the eucalyptus trees creak like the timbers of a ship. And even in weeks when the temperature rises, and the flatlands down below bake, the westward breeze brings cool air as we sit in the shade of the top floor looking east.

We’ll miss our neighbors—this generous and supportive Fairfax community. We’ve loved living here. And we hope whoever chooses 235 Tamalpais will experience the same deep sense of home.