Highgate
Highgate is a large, traditional family home designed for five people to live in comfort with three to six cats living in absolute luxury.
Traditional Features
Overview
- 4 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, roughly 2,000 sq. ft.
- A full remodel in 2023 makes this feel like a new house.
- Not just a cosmetic remodel: Brand new floors, ceilings, electrical, plumbing, HVAC, bathrooms, windows, lighting, doors, fixtures, hardware, and paint throughout entire house.
- New quartz countertops and refinished cabinets in the kitchen.
- Modular housing options that let you expand the home to 6 or 8 bedrooms.
- An extensive suite of special features that make living with many cats easier and more enjoyable.
- Excellent location with off-street parking for two vehicles.
- Includes water, gas, and trash service. You pay only for electricity, which is greatly offset by a large solar panel system.
- Also includes free access to the fastest internet service in the area: Gigablast from Cox.
Furnishings
Highgate is a fully furnished home.
Instead of cheap furniture that is easy to damage, we believe tenants will appreciate higher quality furnishings and take better care of them. To that end, Highgate is full of well-built, durable furniture. Brands include Steelcase, Ekornes, Herman Miller, West Elm, Living Spaces, Crate & Barrel, Pottery Barn, and some custom-built pieces, with a maximum of one piece from IKEA per room.
Each bedroom includes:
- Solid wood bed
- Premium foam mattress with mattress cover
- Solid wood nightstand
- Solid wood desk
- Bookshelves
- Executive rolling chair with upgraded wheels
- Full-length mirror
- Large closet
- 55” Samsung television
- Individual high-efficiency heating/air conditioning system
- Wired ethernet port
- Dim-to-warm recessed LED lights
- LED desk lamp with advanced features
There are some variations between rooms. For example, Room #1 has more furniture, Room #2 has a couch, Room #3 has a walk-in closet, etc. All rooms have queen beds except Room #4, which has a full bed. See more in the #Room_Details section.
Living Room:
- Modular couches: Steelcase Media Scape Collaboration Lounges (x3)
- Modular chairs: Ekornes Stressless Luxury Recliners (x2)
- Modular tables: Coalesse Sebastopol Occasional Tables (x4)
- Modular tables: Ekornes Stressless Ellipse Tables (x1-4)
- 65” Samsung television
- Stone fireplace (decorative, non-functional)
- Ceiling fan
Dining Room:
- Large marble mosaic table with smooth resin finish
- Six wood dining chairs
Appliances:
- Stainless steel refrigerator, gas range, microwave, dishwasher
- High capacity washer and dryer
At your option, the kitchen can also be fully furnished, including dinnerware, flatware, cutlery, cookware, etc.
Comfort & Health
- Enormous master suite is the size of a small apartment—nearly 400 sq. ft.
- Split-level design gives the quiet privacy of upstairs living quarters with only a half-staircase.
- Versatile fourth bedroom downstairs with en suite half-bath is also perfect for an office or guest room.
- Individual HVAC systems in each bedroom let everyone be comfortable without wasting energy.
- Lighting throughout the house is recessed and dimmable.
- Dim-to-warm lights in bedrooms: These lights automatically turn from cool white to warm yellow light as you dim them, which feels more comfortable and doesn’t interfere with sleep like regular LED lights.
- For noise reduction, security, and privacy, all doors are solid wood and each bedroom door has a heavy-duty deadbolt.
- Fireplace in living room offers a cozy heating option in the winter.
- Luxury vinyl flooring throughout the home is beautiful and durable.
- All materials used throughout home are easy to clean.
- Tankless water heater never runs out of hot water.
- Premium whole house water filter and salt-free softener ensure high water quality. (To be added in 2024.)
- Easy access to shared 1,250 sq. ft. raised patio with 600 sq. ft. covered outdoor living area.
- Sitewide noise restrictions enforced by on-site management ensure the quiet enjoyment of your home.
Energy Savings
- Large solar panel system gives free power throughout the day.
- Brand new double-paned windows provide great insulation.
- Brand new HVAC systems are incredibly efficient.
- Whole-house fan cools entire home quickly and inexpensively.
- LED lighting throughout house consumes very little power.
- Tankless water heater only operates when you need it.
- Oversized eaves block most direct sunlight in hotter months.
Convenience
- Incredibly convenient location.
- Space for two large vehicles in driveway.
- Laundry center near bedrooms upstairs.
- Large closets in every bedroom, plus abundant common storage space.
- On-site management to address any problems.
Harmony by Design
To promote harmony between the people sharing this home, many architectural and furnishing details were designed to reduce conflict:
- Entire home is designed to be easy to clean and hard to damage.
- Thick doors and extra insulation help keep the bedrooms quiet.
- Good sleep is further aided with dim-to-warm lights as well as high quality mattresses and bedding.
- Individual HVAC in each room means everyone can live at their desired temperature.
- TVs in each room mean everyone can watch what they want.
- Individually-keyed deadbolts on each bedroom door ensure privacy and security.
- Ample shared and individual storage means everyone should have the space they need.
- Modular living room is designed to be quickly and easily rearranged for the purposes of those using it.
- Storage bench near entry encourages removing shoes indoors, leading to quieter footsteps and cleaner floors.
- Apothecary chest gives everyone a space to keep personal items near the door without clutter and enables easy exchange of items without having to synchronize schedules.
- Durable kitchen furniture makes inevitable accidents easy to clean quickly with no lasting damage.
- Bathrooms are designed to maximize storage and space to hang towels.
- If cats are in the home, the litter closets eliminate all litter box odor, and several other features help reduce anxiety, resulting in calmer behavior. The combination can make it so even people who do not like cats are not bothered by one in the home.
Highgate and The Quarters are two connected homes that can be rented separately. However, they were designed to complement each other and can be joined or divided in several different ways.
When rented together, these two homes come with a significant rate discount and three layout options:
- Layout #1: One home with 8 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms, and two kitchens.
- Layout #2: Two homes, one with 6 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms, and one with 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom.
- Layout #3: Two homes, one with 4 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms, and one with 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms.
In layouts #2 and #3, both homes have their own full kitchens and entry doors.
Furthermore, you can change this configuration while you are still living there. This is especially useful for groups of people, such as travel nurses or international students attending SDSU, who wish to share housing with others they do not know well. Everyone might get along splendidly, like the first tenants who ever lived here. However, some people's schedules or personalities might conflict with others. If, after living together for a while, you decide it would be preferable to split into two groups, this allows you to change your living arrangements without having to find a new home.
Special Features for Cats
In additional to the free benefits for cat owners available to all residents of Lion Canyon, Highgate has a cat-centric floor plan with numerous features designed to solve the problems associated with living with many cats, helping to make you and your pets happier and healthier.
Litter Closets
It’s hard to imagine having many cats in a large home or even just one cat in a small home without feeling like you’re living in a litter box, but it’s possible with a litter closet.
These tiny bathrooms for cats can be constantly ventilated to create negative air pressure, which means absolutely no air or odor escapes. This is accomplished using a hyper-efficient fan that costs less than a penny a day to operate in California. (A penny-and-a-half in San Diego.)
With a litter closet, the only time you will ever smell or even see your litter box is when you clean it. With an automated litter box (which we can provide), a single litter closet can usually be used by multiple cats—even ones that haven’t liked to share before.
Learn about litter closets to find out more about how they work to eliminate litter box odor in your home.
Highgate has three litter closets, one in each of the upstairs bedrooms. Each room having a litter closet means that even if any cat gets accidentally stuck in any bedroom upstairs, they’ll still have access to a litter box.
Bowl Basins
These small alcoves keeps your water bowl out of the way and always full, thanks to a water supply line with an automatic shut-off valve. (Should this valve fail, there are three other safeguards built in to prevent flooding.)
These bowl basins work with a cat fountain we will provide for your use, but if you want to use your own instead, most bowls with a reservoir can be adapted to work with it (which we will happily do for you).
These basins also have an ideal size and location, which is more important to cats than many people realize. Learn about bowl basins to find out how they can significantly improve the health and happiness of your cat.
Scratch Stations
Cats have an instinctual need to scratch—it is necessary to maintain the health of their claws, plus scratching relieves anxiety and boredom.
Scratch stations provide a consistent, safe place your cats can rely on to take care of this need whenever the urge arises. Each station has a universal scratch pad holder that works with any size of pad and holds them at the ideal position for most cats to get the most out of scratching.
The scratch stations are located inside the litter closets, which lets cats clean their claws immediately after using the litter box rather than track dirty paws around the house. This location also keeps ugly scratch pads out of sight, plus it will keep shredded cardboard and catnip flakes contained to further help keep your home tidy.
Solarium (Coming 2024)
Cats love to be up high, lay in the sun, sniff fresh air, and watch wildlife. Your cats can do all this safely from the massive solarium outside a window in the master bedroom. The solarium is positioned so your cats can get the most sun as well as observe the birds and butterflies attracted by the neighbor’s meticulously maintained botanical garden next door.
By opening the cat door in the master bedroom, the solarium can always be accessed, even if the bedroom door is closed. Furthermore, because cats access the solarium through a door next to the window instead of through it, the solarium does not interfere with the aesthetic or operation of the windows or shutters.
Sanctuary Gate
If you live with multiple cats, you already know the frustration of frantically herding them all up when you need to corral them, such as when you must keep the front door open or when you have visitors with toddlers or allergies. More than just a nuisance, this can be a matter of life and death if a cat escapes the home, but it’s just not practical or even always possible to confine multiple cats on a moment’s notice.
However, this home has a cat-centric floor plan. Every feature for cats is located on the upper floor, and all that’s required to keep all your cats safely up there is to close the built-in cat gate at the top of the staircase.
Virtually all pet gates are useless for cats, since they can climb or jump right over them. However, this custom gate stretches all the way to the ceiling, making it impossible for even the most athletic cat to get over it. Made of powder-coated steel by a local artisan, this handsome gate operates easily without a knob and lays flat against the wall, completely out of the way when not in use.
Learn about sanctuary gates to find out how they can make meaningful improvements to your lifestyle.
Configurable Cat Living Spaces
Another regular problem in households with multiple cats is the need to keep certain cats away from others, such as when you get a new cat, when two cats aren’t getting along, or when a cat is sick or injured.
Each bedroom upstairs has a cat door that be opened to allow access or locked to create a confined area. Along with the pet gate and an additional cat door between two of the bedrooms, there are 32 possible door configurations, allowing you to easily create different living areas as your needs change.
As many cats as can get along with each other can enjoy the full benefits of the upstairs cat environment, and any that need to be on their own can easily be quarantined without changing anything but a cat door lock lever.
This flexibility allows you to provide an enriching living space for all your cats, even when confined, which is vitally important for their well-being. Cats can be perfectly healthy and happy living indoors their entire lives, but only if they have access to a sufficiently varied environment.
On top of giving access to more spaces, even the doors themselves are a source of enrichment, especially with cats who like to play with objects and chase each other. In addition to relieving boredom, when left unlocked these doors can also help relieve anxiety by making it impossible for a cat to be trapped in a room accidentally.
Cat Tunnels with Brushes
Each litter closet is accessed via a decoratively trimmed tunnel that is lined with a stiff brush, so your cats automatically groom themselves every time they go in and out.
You’ll be pleasantly surprised at how much this brush reduces the amount of loose cat hair in the home. With multiple cats in the household, you’ll see a big difference immediately.
Cat-Free Bedroom
In a home full of cats, it can still be important to have a living space that is off-limits to them, such as if you work from home, if you have guests over, or if someone in your household has allergies.
In conjunction with the pet gate, the bedroom on the lower floor can be easily maintained as a cat-free environment without restricting the freedom of the cats upstairs.
Cat-Friendly Policies
Several policies help maximize the health and happiness of your cats. First, no pet dogs are allowed. Sitewide noise restrictions are enforced to ensure neither you nor your cats experience any unnecessary anxiety. Also prohibited are smoking, candles, incense burners, and anything that produces smoke or vapor other than steam, to reduce fire danger as well as to protect the health and comfort of cats.
Location Details
Make sure to read about the location, because even with all of the other benefits this home has to offer, the wonderful area around it is one of its best features.
Rental Information
To see rental costs and availability, or to apply to rent, please visit one of the following listing pages:
Photo Gallery
Video: Highgate home walkthrough
Photo: Exterior front view
Photo: Kitchen
Photo: Kitchen
Photo: Dining room
Photo: Living room w/ fireplace
Photo: Master bedroom
Photo: Master bedroom
Photo: Master bedroom
Photo: Master bath
Photo: Master bath
Photo: Bedroom #2
Photo: Bedroom #3
Photo: Bedroom #3 walk-in closet
Photo: Upstairs bathroom
Photo: Upstairs bathroom
Photo: Bedroom #4
Photo: Bedroom #4 en suite powder room
Photo: Laundry center
Photo: Litter closet (Master bedroom)
Photo: Litter closet (Bedroom #2)
Photo: Litter closet (Bedroom #3)
Photo: Bowl Basin
Photo: Cat Solarium
Photo: Cat Gate
Photo: Exterior rear view
Photo: Raised patio