Category: Our Updates

Friends will join us in early February for a week of celebrating. Besides gathering to remember Kay on what would have been her 66th birthday, we’re commemorating 20 years since Andrew and I first visited the Hawaiian Islands, and we will all be reliving many Open That Bottle Nights with a special wine we found at a fundraiser for the Honolulu Museum of Art last month.

The story behind that particular bottle is told elsewhere, because right now we want to recognize that today marks four years since we became Hawaiian homeowners. For whatever reason(s), it seems we were meant to have this house. Maybe lucky numbers played a part, because the street address is 27, and the date we closed? January 27. Coincidence?

Perhaps, but we also had a street address connection with our San Francisco house, which was actually a bit of a dump when we had bought it, about 20 years prior to relocating to Hawai’i. However, we saw great potential, which we eventually realized with a major renovation (long-planned), and subsequent sale (NOT planned). And it had a great street address: 151.

What’s special about the number 151? Well, the address conjured up fond (if fuzzy) memories of Danny’s Bacardi-infused college days. Numerical coincidences have always intrigued him, and he predicted good luck with that house because he thought the address had special, high-octane connotations.

Danny’s intuition proved correct. Once we’d survived that first year in Hawai’i and confirmed we were here to stay, the San Francisco house sold quickly and for much more than we expected. We immediately began the search for a home here, knowing we needed to find something that worked for Ella, but never suspected she would play a key role in helping close the deal, thus creating our current number coincidence.

Ella’s story started one Thursday, when our agent called us to urgently preview a new listing online. We’d already dragged him through dozens of open houses, so he had a good idea of our needs and priorities, and suspected this one might be a good fit. He was right — we liked it a lot. This house was even in the same neighborhood where we were renting, and could be shown the following day.

However, Andrew had a Friday schedule conflict, so we asked if we could possibly see it that same evening. Our agent immediately contacted the seller’s agent, and called us back with good news. They would be willing to show the house that night, and added that we were invited to bring Ella.

Wait — how did their agent know we had a dog named Ella? Well, unbeknownst to us until then, the seller’s agent was another friendly local dog-walker who had graciously welcomed us and Ella when we first arrived, and had ensured our mongrel pit mix was properly introduced to (and received by) all the purebred and designer dogs in the area, and their people as well. Ella absolutely adored her, and the feeling was clearly mutual.

That evening, we brought Ella over, who — after greeting her friend — proceeded to make herself at home. Meanwhile, we walked around the house, mentally ticking off all the boxes on our must-have list, and also admiring how well the decor and materials matched our personal preferences. While it lacked the view of the house we were renting, it did have a swimming pool — a compromise we’d already been prepared to make.

Unfortunately, another criteria the house exceeded was our initial budget, but after Danny crunched numbers most of the next day, we submitted an offer on Saturday morning at the full asking price, and crossed our fingers. A few hours later, we received a call from our agent, letting us know of a competing, all-cash offer “substantially above asking” — so could we increase ours?

Our answer, of course, was no, so we just accepted that this would be our first out-bid situation, and resigned ourselves to probably more to come, especially since bidding wars were so common in the local real estate market at that time.

The following morning, we were in a Sunday video chat with several friends in California when our agent called again. Danny apologized and stepped away to respond, sparking outrageous indignation from our friends that another call would preempt their video chat already in session. Danny returned in tears, immediately shifting indignation to concern — what could have happened? All he could sob out was, “We got the house.”

”House? WHAT HOUSE?” We were so sure we’d be outbid that we didn’t even mention to our friends that we’d put in an offer. Perhaps it was the letter we wrote commending the prior owners on how much we could appreciate the care and thought they’d put into their renovations. Maybe they liked knowing we were living just a few blocks away (we didn’t realize it at the time, but we’d met them before, walking around the neighborhood). Or was it Ella? Plus another number coincidence? Who knows?

What we DO know is that lucky 27 turned up again when we installed our solar roof. People would ask about the capacity and Danny kept forgetting the actual output until he realized the rating (26.55 kW) rounded up to 27. Easy enough to remember now, right?

Oh, and another (non-numeric) coincidence: Those friends on that video conference when we got the call about the house? They’re the ones coming to visit next week. We have a LOT to celebrate, don’t you think?