Spindrift: a 1947 La Jolla beach house, as a documentary

Most listing films are about two minutes long. This one runs four, because the house on Spindrift Drive had more to say.

A house with a history

The beach house sits on the seawall at La Jolla Shores. It was designed by William Kesling, one of Southern California's early modernists, and built in 1946 and 1947 on the edge of the rocks, with the ocean running beneath the living room floor.

It was new and daring enough that LIFE magazine photographed it for its November 3, 1947 issue. Nearly eighty years later, it still looks like it arrived from the future.

Over the decades the property grew into three separate structures: the original beach house, a modern upper residence with gardens and ocean-view decks, and a pool deck, with an elevator that connects the beach house to it.

Why a documentary

A walkthrough would have shown the rooms. It would have missed the reason anyone falls for this house: the story of a 1940s experiment that worked, and of the ocean that has been its neighbor ever since.

So we treated it like a short documentary instead of a listing video: a film about the house's history and its life on the water, given the time to unfold at its own pace.

Alongside it we cut a teaser and Life in the 40s, a short social film that leans into the era the house came from.

See the project.

When a home has a story

Some properties are more than square footage: an architect's landmark, a family's history, a place with a past. For those we make an Architectural Documentary, a long-form film that tells the story of the home, not just what is in it.

It's available across San Diego, Orange County, Los Angeles and Las Vegas, and pairs naturally with our Signature photography for the listing itself.

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