About Just San Diego

Why this site exists

I came to San Diego the way I come to most places: through its houses. For a city so often described by its beaches and its weather, San Diego has one of the most interesting architectural stories in California, and it doesn’t get told nearly enough.

Irving Gill worked out his stripped-down, concrete modernism here more than a century ago. With William Hebbard he designed the George W. Marston House, commissioned in 1904 and now a museum. In 1913 he built the La Jolla Woman’s Club for Ellen Browning Scripps using tilt-slab concrete construction, the first use of the method in California. Then came the 1915 Panama-California Exposition in Balboa Park, where Bertram Goodhue’s Spanish Colonial Revival buildings set the style much of California would build in for decades.

Cliff May, the man we call the father of the California ranch house, was born in San Diego in 1908 and designed his first houses here in the 1930s, about fifty of them, before he went on to Los Angeles. Up the coast in Rancho Santa Fe, Lilian Rice shaped an entire community in the 1920s. Those houses, and the bungalows, Spanish Revival homes and mid-century modern houses that followed, are a big part of what people buy and sell in San Diego today.

Just San Diego is where I keep that record: the architects, the streets and the houses, written plainly and specifically, so that when you’re ready to buy or sell, you already know the story.

Who I am

I’m Debbie Pisaro, a California real estate agent. I’ve spent 24 years helping people buy and sell homes in this state, and I’ve been recognized as an Inman Luxury Leader. My office is in Los Angeles, and my work takes me up and down the coast.

I founded Coastline 840, named for the 840 miles of California coastline, because I’ve never wanted to be confined to one zip code. California’s architecture is what keeps me in love with this work: Spanish Colonial Revival, Craftsman, Cliff May ranches, post-and-beam, mid-century modern, and the historic homes that still carry the names of the people who designed them.

My architectural homes practice, bio and full contact details are at debbiepisaro.com/about.

Where I work

I represent buyers and sellers throughout the city of San Diego and across California.

• The coast. La Jolla, Pacific Beach, Mission Beach, Ocean Beach and Point Loma.
• Central San Diego. Mission Hills, Hillcrest, North Park, South Park, Golden Hill, Bankers Hill, Old Town and Downtown, the older neighborhoods around Balboa Park.
• San Diego County. North County and the rest of the county, for clients whose search crosses city lines.

For my architectural homes practice, see debbiepisaro.com. For statewide California, see Coastline 840.

Working with me

If you’re reading this and thinking about buying or selling in San Diego, I’d be glad to help. You can reach me through the contact page, by email at debbie@coastline840.com, or by phone at (310) 362-6429.

For the rest of California, see Coastline 840.