Bear Creek Estate

Stunning loft conversion for rent in Jack London Square

Located in the historical Tower Lofts Building, this top-floor 1BR/1BA 1300 square foot loft pays tribute to its industrial past with 18-foot wood beam ceilings and newly refinished concrete floors. The open floor plan provides tons of flexibility, while the unique layout lets your kitchen be a separate gathering space around its massive island.

Kitchen completely updated in 2019 with soft-close cabinetry and top of the line appliances, including a double oven. Spacious, spa-like bathroom with jetted tub and plenty of storage. Mezzanine bedroom with bed platform and massive closet.

Unit features:

• Washer/dryer in unit
• Tons of storage space
• One deeded parking space in the gated garage
• Blazing fast Paxio fiber already in the unit

Shared roof deck with grill, garden (lovingly volunteer-maintained, if you enjoy gardening!). 

10-minute walk to Lake Merritt BART or 15 minutes to 12^th Street; 8 minute walk to the Oakland Ferry terminal. 15-minute bike ride to Coast Guard Island and Alameda. Four breweries/taprooms and two wineries are at your doorstep, along with Chop Bar, Nido, Plank, The Forge and so much more.

• Rent: $3200/mo
• Deposit: $4800
• 12-month lease
• Pets considered with additional deposit
• Non-smokers only, please
• Water, trash, and fiber included. Tenant pays PG&E
• Renter's insurance required

Available now. Showing by appointment only.

 

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The Garden Evolution

The way our garden is growing right now is not unlike watching a magic show.

A Brandywine plant with nary a single fruit at night will burst forth half a dozen marble sized tomatoes by morning. A zucchini squash will go from being the size of a KitKat bar to fully grown in the space of 48 hours. And watermelon vines? Those monsters will grow three inches overnight - we measured.

All this insane growth seems impossible to me because, not only am I incredibly new to gardening, I'm also living in a place with really optimal growing conditions. Bear Creek provides a perfect combination of hot days and temperate nights, occasional drenching rains, and plenty of room for everything to spread out roots.

That's not to say we haven't had our failures. Our asparagus failed to take root, despite hours of backbreaking trench digging and soil amending. Cucumbers seem determined to wither and die, no matter where they're planted, and how tenderly we care for them. And about half our onions -- the yellow ones, mostly,  either got nibbled at by gophers, or started to mold before they were ever pulled. (The red ones, as you can see below, thrived beautifully.)

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 What's Growing Now:

• Tomatoes: Cherry, Sweet 100s, Early Girls, Purple Cherokee, Brandywine, Yellow Pineapple, Yellow Jubilee, Roma
• Blueberries: O'Neal, Liberty, Sunset Blue
• Crenshaw Melon
• Charentais Melon
• Watermelon
• Big Max Pumpkins (for Halloween!)
• Zucchini
• Goldbar Squash
• Roma Beans
• Commander Beans
• Purple Royalty Beans
• Rhubarb
• Strawberries (Ft. Laramie, Albion)
• Yellow corn
• Hot peppers
• Sweet peppers
• Armenian Cucumbers
• Herbs: Basil (4 types), Tarragon, Oregano, Marjoram, Dill, Coriander, Parsley, Chives, Lovage, Lemon Balm, Mint (4 types), Thyme (3 types)    

Reality

In a anachronistic turn of events, we found ourselves in a competitive bidding situation for Bear Creek. In a way, it felt like we'd time-traveled to 2002 -- we were lifting contingencies, scrambling for loan approval notes, and writing heartfelt letters about why the place meant so much to us. It was a torturous couple of weeks until we woke to a text message from our agent: "YOU GOT IT!"

And then... reality. Thirteen acres and two wells and a septic system and an orchard and poison oak and a chicken coop and WHERE DO WE GET WOOD FOR THE WOOD STOVE?!*

This is the thing about contemplating a move to the country: you arrogantly think, "well, people have done this for centuries; how hard can it be?" But we city folk have mostly lost the experiential DNA for this. We join "boot camps" to mimic chopping wood and hauling mulch. We buy little packs of firestarters to get our campfires going. We rely on our tax dollars to ensure access to clean water. And we expect that an ambulance will be there within a few minutes if something really bad happens.

That's not how it is here. Sure, you build a community to learn from, you volunteer with the fire department, you make sure people know you're around. But homesteading -- and this is what we're doing -- is a steep education in depending on yourself. Your body learns to move in ways it never has before while trying really hard not to get injured. Your brain is cataloging plants and animal poop and bugs and what type of wood burns hottest or fastest or longest. And tied up in all of that is an intrinsic redefinition of how you see yourself and the world around you.

It's intense and wonderful and incredibly hard. I can't wait to see what else is coming.

 

 

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*Answer: right outside the front door, dummies. Chainsaw + Axe + Woods = Nearly limitless heating fuel.

Finding Bear Creek

About six months ago, we started toying with the idea of what it might look like if we split our lives between the city and the country.We are both fortunate enough to have jobs that allow us a fair bit of autonomy, and the flexibility to work from home.

We talked about the risks we were willing to take -- "yes" to bears and snakes, "no" to earthquakes and inundation zones. We considered how much effort we wanted to put into renovation versus maintenance, and the time commitment we could make on a daily-weekly-monthly basis.

We knew we wanted to be near a community, but far enough away from our neighbors to feel like no one would come wandering up the road by accident. We wanted to have a substantial garden, and all the better if we could keep some livestock or poultry, too. We wanted land that would require enough labor to keep us in shape, but not so much that it would overwhelm us or displace our professional responsibilities.

Perhaps most importantly, we wanted a place where our families -- including two amazing young nephews -- and our friends would want to visit, and make memories in.

So, over the course of a few months, we took a few drives, and turned to the internets. We played with Google Earth -- a lot -- and scoured sites like Zillow and Trulia. We visited... nine? properties, and found ourselves enamored of two that could not have been more different while still meeting all of our requirements.

 

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Finally, after another round of visits to each property, we made an offer on Bear Creek... and then we waited.

Welcome To Bear Creek

This blog is nothing new.

It's the story of two city kids (midlife kids, that is) who decided to buy a house in the country. Who've taken on a dozen acres of woods and garden and orchard and creekside with nary a day of country living in their adult lives. Who are learning how to fell trees and plant them. Raise chickens and raze poison oak. Who are entering a new community that's very different from the one they came from. And hoping to do it all without losing a limb or sanity.

The home we bought is called Bear Creek Estate; it's situated in the Sierra Nevada foothills, and this is what it looked like on the day we closed escrow:

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For us, this blog is a place to document our experiences via photos and words. We hope that, for you, it will be a source of amusement as we bumble our way through lessons both fun and difficult. 

Welcome to Bear Creek Estate.